Cephalometric comparison of early and late secondary bone grafting in the treatment of patients suffering from unilateral cleft lip and palate.

The study was based on a retrospective cephalometric assessment of 10-year-olds in order to evaluate the influence of early secondary bone grafting on craniofacial development in patients suffering from non-syndromic complete unilateral cleft lip and palate. The study consisted of 79 patients in the early and 67 patients in the late secondary bone grafting group. The mean age at alveolar bone grafting was 2.5 years (SD 0.03) in the first group and 9.8 years (SD 2.3) in the second group. The primary cleft repair of these 146 patients was always performed in accordance with the one-stage method. Additionally, the non-cleft Control group was comprised of 56 children of the same ethnicity and age. The cephalometric analysis performed at age 10 revealed similar overall characteristics of observed growth disturbances in both cleft groups in comparison to the Control group, such as: inhibition of vertical and anterior maxillary development, the tendency of the mandible to rotate clockwise, and a prevalence of vertical over horizontal facial growth. The comparison between the cleft groups revealed a lack of growth differences in the vertical dimension and more pronounced anterior maxillary development inhibition in the early bone grafting group. This study will be followed by a similar evaluation after craniofacial development is complete by a significant number of these patients in order to ascertain our conclusions.