Congenital midline cervical cleft: a 7 year prospective study.

Congenital cervical midline cleft (CCMC) is a rare disease of the head and neck region with only a few reported series. The patients attending the ENT or Plastic surgery OPD of a tertiary referral hospital of eastern India were screened for the presence of CCMC. All the patients found to have the developmental abnormality were included in the study and treated. Five patients were identified as having CCMC within the 7 year study duration. Of them three were female and two male. The youngest patient was a 2 day old baby and 25 years was the maximum age of presentation in the present series. All except the new born were treated by surgical excision and primary repair of the neck defect. In literature CCMC has been described almost exclusively in the Caucasian population. The present series documents the occurrence of this developmental abnormality in the Indian population. This is perhaps the first case series on CCMC to be presented from the Indian subcontinent.