ABSTRACT
AIM: To assess the degree of facial symmetry in patients suffering from unilateral cleft lip, alveolus and palate (UCLAP) by determining differences between the cleft and the non-cleft hemifaces from 3D surface data. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In twenty-two 10-year-old UCLAP patients, who had the lip repaired using the Tennison-Randall technique and did not undergo further revisional surgery, differences were determined between landmarks, surface areas of the upper lip vermilion and nostrils and virtual volumes of midface, nose and upper lip for cleft and non-cleft sides, separately, after having established a plane of symmetry calculated from optical 3D facial surface data. RESULTS: Statistically significant differences could be found between cleft and non-cleft sides for the nasal landmarks G(lat), G(sup) and La(med), the nostril angle and the virtual volume of the nose (p(Glat)=0.011, p(Gsup)<0.0005, p(Lamed)=0.002, p(nostril angle)=0.036 and p(nose volume)<0.0005, resp.). CONCLUSION: Analysis of 3D data shows that complete nasal symmetry is difficult to achieve with Tennison-Randall's lip repair without revisional surgery. Further trials on larger populations of patients will allow a more comprehensive and consistent analysis of the consequence of different methods for cp repair in order to identify the techniques with the best outcome in terms of facial symmetry.
