Upper Extremity Deformities Associated with the Orofacial Clefts

Abstract

A material of 89 cases of upper extremity deformities, among the 3225 cleft patients born during the period 1950–75, and treated in the Finnish Red Cross Cleft Centre is presented. About two-thirds of the patients had an isolated cleft palate—half of the male and nearly all of the female patients. The percentage of upper extremity deformities appearing with the different types of the oro-facial clefts was, for clefts of the primary palate 2.0: specifically for cleft lip 0.8, cleft lip-palate 2.6, and cleft lip and palate 3.6; and for clefts of the secondary palate 3.5: specifically for cleft palate 3.7, submucous cleft palate 1.6; and for the branchial arch syndrome (lateral cleft) 5.2; the total average being 2.8 percent. About one-third of the patients were dwarfs, most of them diastrophic dwarfs. Syndactyly was somewhat more common among cleft patients, 0.3%, than in the average population. Polydactyly. 0.1% was about as common as the average. Ectrodactyly was more common among cleft patients, 0.4%, than either syndactyly or polydactyly that are considered the most common hand deformities among the general population. The syndactyly cases were more complicated than the average, among them 4 cases of Apert syndrome were noted. About three-fourths of the 89 patients had multiple deformities.