Left-sided predominance of hypodontia irrespective of cleft sidedness in a French population.

OBJECTIVE

Individuals with oral clefts exhibit considerably more dental anomalies than do individuals without clefts. Our aim was to evaluate the prevalence of tooth agenesis in a sample composed of 124 children (81 boys and 43 girls, mean age 12.5 years) with clefts registered with the Cleft Palate Center in Strasbourg (France).

DESIGN

Cleft types and dental agenesis were assessed by clinical and radiographic examination. Cleft types were divided into four groups according to the clinical extent of the cleft (cleft lip only [CL, 12.9%], cleft lip and alveolus [CLA, 4%], cleft lip and palate [CLP, 49.2%], and cleft palate only [CP, 33.9%]).

RESULTS

Of the subjects 63% had evidence of hypodontia: maxillary lateral incisors (54%) and upper and lower premolars (32%) were the most common missing teeth. The number of dental ageneses associated with CP (54%) and CLP (79%) was significantly higher than that with CL (33%). All these anomalies were found in proportionately higher frequencies as the severity of the cleft increased, and we found left side predominance for hypodontia (p < .01) irrespective of cleft sidedness.

CONCLUSIONS

Both right-sided and left-sided clefts were more frequently correlated with left-sided dental agenesis. This left-sided prevalence suggests that common signaling malfunctions might be involved, both in dental development anomalies and cleft genesis.