CEPHALOMETRIC PARAMETERS IN CLEFT PALATE PATIENTS WITH AND WITHOUT ORONASAL FISTULA.

Introduction Failure in the fusion of medial nasal processes and maxillary prominences would result in the development of a cleft lip while failure in merging the palatal shelves would result in the development of a cleft palate (CP). At present, patients with a cleft palate (CP) have often undergone corrective surgery before 1 year of age. However, an oronasal fistula (ONF) often remains in the palate after surgery. Methodology In this historical cohort, 40 patients with CP, 6-10 years old, who had undergone corrective surgery at 1 year of age were selected by targeted sampling and assigned to two groups with ONF (N=20) and without ONF (n=20). The two groups were matched in terms of age and gender. All patients had an intraoral photograph of the maxilla and a lateral cephalogram. Twenty-three cephalometric parameters were measured prior to the orthodontic treatment and compared between the two groups using a t-test. Results CP patients with ONF had significantly higher Y-axis, gonial angle, Go1, Go2, GoGn-SN, U1-SN, and lower lip to E line compared with those without ONF (P<0.05). The Jarabak index was significantly lower in the CP patients with ONF compared with those without it (P<0.05). The difference in other cephalometric parameters was not significant between the two groups (P>0.05). Conclusion Patients with ONF had significantly greater growth in the vertical dimension compared with those without ONF. Yet, the difference in the anteroposterior dimension was not significant between the two groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]