The need for long-term multicenter treatment assessment of craniofacial developmental disorders including cleft lip and palate.

There has been an increase of interest in recent years in comparing treatment outcome in patients with craniofacial anomalies, including cleft lip and palate. When a treatment result is to be evaluated, it is important that it is multifaceted, taking all aspects into account. A comparison between treatment outcome in six centers showed that those with simple procedures and few surgeons involved in the primary operations had as good treatment results as those with more complicated treatment procedures. The center that used presurgical orthopedics with extraoral strapping in its treatment program ranked low as did the center employing primary bone grafting as part of the treatment program when compared with the other centers.