Rare Craniofacial Clefts

A general idea of the magnitude of the problem can be drawn from studies of the occurrence of the common clefts of the lip and palate (Davis (1935) found four median clefts of the lip and five oblique facial clefts in a series of 937 examples of common clefts of the lip and palate. Blackfield and Wilde (1950) noted only five lateral (transverse) facial clefts during a period in which they observed 500 clefts of the lip. Burian (1957) reported 97 cases of rare facial clefts in a series of nearly 4000 consecutive common clefts of the lip accumulated over a 40-year period. Fogh-Andersen (1965) detected 48 examples of rare craniofacial clefts among 3988 consecutive cases of facial clefts gathered over a 30-year period. of the 48 rare clefts, there were 15 median clefts of the lip, 3 oblique facial clefts, 12 transverse facial clefts, 3 atypical cleft palates, 8 clefts of the nose, and 7 clefts of the scalp. Popescu (1968) reported 14 transverse facial clefts in a series of 1475 patients. Pitanguy (1968) collected 25 patients with rare facial clefts in a group of 736 patients with common clefts. Based on these reports, the occurrence rate of rare craniofacial clefts as compared to common clefts would range between 9.5:1000 and 34:1000. The true incidence is certainly higher, since some of the reports included only one type of cleft.