Size of the cranium in parents and their children with cleft lip

Fifty-two children with cleft lip with or without cleft palate), CL(P), fifty-three non-cleft children, and their respective parents were studied. Area measurements for three craniofacial components of brain case, upper face and lower face were obtained from lateral and frontal roentgenographic cephalograms. The most important finding of this investigation was that the CL(P) patients and their parents had a significantly smaller brain case than did the control subjects. A small brain case may well be one morphological characteristic predisposing toward the cleft anomaly.