Objective: To compare the dental development and rate of tooth development between children with and without cleft lip and palate.
Patients: Age- and gender-matched pairs (231 in all) of southern Chinese children ages 3 to 12 years, with and without cleft lip and palate.
Methods: Dental histories and radiographs were studied. From these, dental development was determined.
Results: Of 2946 tooth pairs in the children with cleft lip and palate, 252 (8.6%) were found to be asymmetric, significantly (p < .001) more than the 63 of 3179 (2.0%) tooth pairs observed in the children without cleft lip and palate. The teeth with the highest frequency of asymmetry were the maxillary lateral incisors (38.1%). Differences in dental development on the cleft versus noncleft sides of children with unilateral cleft lip and palate were significant for both maxillary and mandibular teeth (p < .001 and p = .039, respectively). The mean delay in tooth formation of the children with cleft lip and palate was 4.4 months relative to the children without cleft lip and palate. The majority of the teeth in the cleft lip and palate group were delayed by one developmental stage. This happened in 40.0% of the maxillary teeth and 30.1% of the mandibular teeth. The delay in tooth formation increased as the number of missing teeth increased in the children with cleft lip and palate, although not significantly.
Conclusions: This group of southern Chinese children with cleft lip and palate demonstrated a higher prevalence of asymmetric and delayed dental development than did their counterparts who did not have cleft lip and palate.