Cleft lip and cleft palate in Santo Domingo

Area of Science:

• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Pediatric Medicine
• Public Health Epidemiology

Background:

• Facial clefts are common congenital anomalies with varying prevalence globally.
• Understanding the epidemiology of cleft lip and palate is crucial for healthcare planning and resource allocation.
• Data on facial cleft distribution in the Caribbean, specifically the Dominican Republic, is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the occurrence and distribution of isolated cleft lip (CL), cleft lip with cleft palate (CL+CP), and isolated cleft palate (CP).
• To analyze the prevalence of these conditions based on sex and laterality.
• To provide epidemiological data for Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of 439 hospital records of patients with facial clefts.
• Data collected from a public children's hospital in Santo Domingo between May 1973 and December 1976.
• Categorization of clefts by type (CL, CP, CL+CP), sex, and laterality (left/right, unilateral/bilateral).

Main Results:

• Cleft lip (CL) was the most frequent type (36.4%), followed by cleft palate (CP) (32.1%) and cleft lip with cleft palate (CL+CP) (31.4%).
• Males constituted a higher percentage of all facial cleft cases (53.5%).
• Specific sex-based differences were noted: males had a higher proportion of CL+CP, while females had a higher proportion of CP. Left-sided defects were nearly twice as common as right-sided defects. The ratio of unilateral to bilateral clefts was 5.4:1.

Conclusions:

• Cleft lip is the predominant facial cleft type in the studied population of Santo Domingo.
• Significant sex-based variations exist in the occurrence of different cleft types.
• Left-sided and unilateral clefts are more prevalent, highlighting potential etiological factors and informing clinical management strategies.