Informative morphogenetic and phenogenetic variants in children with cleft lip/cleft palate

In 230 patients with nonsyndromic cleft lip/cleft palate (138 boys and 92 girls) and in 226 age related healthy children (137 boys and 89 girls) informative morphogenetic and phenogenetic variants (IMV and PHV, respectively) were investigated. There was no difference between the number of IMVs between both groups (chi 2 = 5.89; d.f. = 3; alpha > 0.70). This finding is in line with the hypothesis that facial cleft disorders occur during blastogenesis, whereas IMVs and PHVs are typical patterns of the embryo- and fetogenesis. The anthropometric findings are contradictory. In a few non-craniofacial phenogenetic variants significant differences were found between the patients and the healthy children. Intrinsic factors or secondary sequelae of the primary defect might additionally act in the morphological fine tuning of children with single cleft lip/cleft palate.