Facial morphology analysis of children with non-syndromic cleft lip and palate in a local population.

Objectives: To study the facial morphology in children with non-syndromic cleft lip and palate by applying numerical facial analysis on photographs for planning and evaluating treatment outcomes. Methods: This descriptive study was conducted from March 2020 to July 2020 in the Department of Oral Pathology, University of Health Sciences and Cleft Lip and Palate Hospital, Lahore Pakistan. A total of 104 patients of both genders with an age range from three months to thirteen years were included. Photographs of the participants were taken to measure facial anthropometrical landmarks including facial height, nose width, mouth width and inter canthal distance. The association between facial measurements with gender and phenotype and across age groups were computed keeping the confidence level at 95%. Results: Mean age of the children was 72.43±44.2 months with slight male predominance. Thirty-one percent presented with bilateral cleft lip and palate followed by unilateral cleft lip and plate. Total mean facial height, nose width and mouth width were found to be 143.46±21.52mm, 32.24±5.03mm and 33.71±4.38mm respectively. Intercanthal distance was measured to be 31.04±5.99mm. Statistically significant association was observed between gender and facial height, nose width, mouth width and Intercanthal distance. Conclusion: Facial anthropometric measures done on frontal photographs can be used to identify the facial landmarks in children with non-syndromic cleft lip and palate in low resource stings that may help surgeons in getting better aesthetic outcomes. These landmarks vary between ethnic groups therefore these should be specific to a particular race and ethnicity so as to ensure proper aesthetics and improved quality of life for the children of all nations.