[Incidence of the cleft lip and palate in the University of Chile Maternity Hospital and in maternity Chilean participating in the Latin American Collaborative Study of Congenital Malformations (ECLAMC)].

BACKGROUND

ECLAMC is a registry, aimed to assess the incidence of congenital malformations, that started in 1967 and Chile incorporated to it in 1969.

AIM

To report the incidence of cleft lip/palate, updated to 1999 in the University of Chile Maternity Hospital and other Chilean hospitals participating in the ECLAMC.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

A review of the ECLAMC database that registers all births or stillbirths of more than 500 g.

RESULTS

The incidence of orofacial cleft, at the University of Chile Maternity Hospital, in the period 1991-1999 was 17.8 per 10,000 (12.6 for cleft lip and 5.2 for cleft palate). The incidence in the rest of participating hospitals was 12.04 and 4.6 respectively. Males had a higher incidence of cleft lip and 80% of children with cleft palate, had other malformations, most of them as part of a syndrome (13 and 18 trisomy, holoproscencephalia, Pierre Robin, Apert en EE syndromes, anencephaly etc). In three of 12 children with cleft lip but without cleft palate, there was a relative with the same malformation.

CONCLUSIONS

It is proposed that both entities, cleft lip with or without cleft palate and cleft palate without cleft lip, are two etiopathogenically different conditions.