[Prevention of cleft palate in animal experiments. Clinical inferences (author's transl)]

The almost 100% successes with drug prophylaxis of cheilognathopalatoschisis in humans described by some authors are dubious, not only because of the dose level, but particularly because of the fact that the data do not result from controlled studies. In order to clarify the efficacy of cleft prophylaxis, we undertook animal experiments. To produce clefts, NMRI mice were treated with dexamethasone on day 13 of pregnancy. Another group also received a deproteinized hemoderivative in addition from day 11 to day 18 and two other groups were used as controls. It was found on autopsy shortly before birth that the incidence of clefts was significantly lower in the animals treated with additional hemoderivative.