Prevalence and severity of malocclusion in children with cleft lip and/or palate in Hong Kong.

The prevalence and severity of malocclusion among children with cleft lip and palate in Hong Kong has never been assessed or documented. A group of 20 children in the primary or early mixed dentition stages, with clefts of the lip and/or palate were assessed using the Occlusal Index. Results of this preliminary study showed that 92.3 percent of the male and 71.5 percent of the female subjects had severe malocclusion, which implied that comprehensive orthodontic treatment at a later stage would be needed. More than half (69.2% of the male, and 57.1% of the female subjects) had syndrome F, defined as mesial molar relationship, overjet, overbite, posterior crossbite, midline diastema, and midline deviation (Summers, 1966). Therefore malocclusion problems were shown to manifest early in patients with cleft lip and/or palate, and further that it is possible to assess malocclusion prevalence and severity in early stages of dental development.