ABSTRACT
Cleft lip and palate is one of the most common congenital abnormalities in the head and neck area. Disturbance in primary sutures fusion can cause this problem in different parts of head and neck. So our goal to fulfill this research is to find some special facial anthropometric indices in parents that may have correlation with cleft lip and palate in children in order to separate families with genetic aptitude for cleft lip and palate. In this case - control study 57 couples of healthy parents with a child with unilateral or bilateral cleft lip and palate were chosen in the epithet of case group and 57 couples of healthy parents with at least two healthy child, without a child with cleft were introduced as control group. 16 craniofacial anthropometric indices were measured by a digital caliper with 0.01 mm accuracy and a soft measuring tape and the findings were compared in two group by using t- test and mann-withney test. This research indicates that head width, minimal frontal width, head length and face width in fathers with a child with cleft are significantly less than the fathers in control group and face height, ear width and maxillary arch length are significantly more than fathers in control group. It also illustrates that minimal frontal width and facial width in mothers have a child with cleft are significantly less than the mothers in control group and face height, ear width, inner canthal width, outer canthal width, maxillary and mandibular arch length and head circumference are significantly more than the mothers in control group. We can conclude with attention to this research that craniofacial complex is under the heavy control of genetic factors thus the future investigations on the controlling genes concerning this index seem to be necessary