Dental anomalies associated with cleft lip and palate in Northern Finland

Despite the reported occurrence of dental anomalies of cleft lip and palate, little is known about their prevalence in children from Northern Finland with cleft lip and palate. The aim was to investigate the prevalence of dental anomalies among patients with different types of clefts in Northern Finland.

Design and Statistics: patient records of 139 subjects aged three years and older (with clefts treated in Oulu University Hospital, Finland during the period 1996-2010 (total n. 183) were analysed for dental anomalies including the number of teeth, morphological and developmental anomalies and their association with the cleft type. The analyses were carried out using Chi-square test and Fisher's exact test. Differences between the groups were considered statistically significant at p values < 0.05.

More than half of the patients had clefts of the hard palate, 18% of the lip and palate, and 13% of the lip. At least one dental anomaly was detected in 47% of the study population. Almost one in three (26.6%) subjects had at least one anomaly and 17.9% had two or three anomalies. The most common type of anomaly in permanent teeth were missing teeth followed by supernumerary teeth. Supernumerary teeth were significantly more apparent when the lip was involved in the cleft compared with palatal clefts. Missing teeth were less prevalent among those 5 years or younger. The prevalence of different anomalies was significantly associated with the cleft type in both age groups.

Dental anomalies are more prevalent among cleft children than in the general population in Finland. The most prevalent anomalies associated with cleft were missing and supernumerary teeth.