The Study Of The Parental Craniofacial Morphological Feathers In Patients With Sporadic Non-syndromic Cleft Lip And/or Palate

It has been suggested that certain heritable aspects of craniofacial form might serve as a pre-disposing factor in the pathogenesis of non-syndromic orofacial clefting. The identification of clinically unaffected, but morphologically and genetically informative, family members has the potential to boost the power of gene mapping approaches and to improve recurrence risk estimates. Studies on the craniofacial morphology of the non-cleft parents of children with cleft lip and (or) palate have always reported differences that distinguish the general population. However, no common characteristics feathers have ever been found among these reports. This encouraged further investigation into the question of heritability and genetic susceptibility to clefting. Differences in these studies can be explained by these factors: the differences in used methodology; the ethic and geographic variability in the craniofacial morphology, the incidence of orofacial cleft, and the ratio of cleft lip and(or) palate to cleft palate only; the aetiologic heterogeneity in oral clefting; lack of male- and female- specific analysis.This study was designed to analyze the characteristics feathers of craniofacial structure in the non-cleft parents of non-syndromic oraofacial cleft patients with Han nationality in the west-south area of China. In addition to the rigorous including criterion, we also considered the type and severity of the clefting as well as the gender effect. Both lateral and posteroanterior cephalometric methods were chosen and a total of 72 parameters were performed to evaluate the craniofacial structure of the subjects. A total of 98 parental pairs of non-syndromic unilateral incomplete cleft lip children, 120 parental pairs of non-syndromic unilateral complete cleft lip and palate children, 87 parental pairs of non-syndromic bilateral complete cleft lip and palate children, 88 parental pairs of non-syndromic incomplete cleft palate children, and 104 normal persons were involved in this study.The results showed that fathers of non-syndromic unilateral incomplete cleft lip children had on average significantly greater outer orbital widths, nasal widths and lower facial heights, as well as more acute cranial base angles and smaller maxillary lengths, widths, and heights. Mothers of non-syndromic unilateral incomplete cleft lip children had on average significantly greater nasal widths, more acute cranial base angles and smaller maxillary lengths. Stepwise discriminant function analysis could correctly classify 82.7% of the fathers of non-syndromic unilateral incomplete cleft lip children and 78.6% of the mothers of non-syndromic unilateral incomplete cleft lip children using just nasal width and cranial base angle.Fathers of non-syndromic unilateral complete cleft lip and palate or non-syndromic bilateral complete cleft lip and palate children consistently displayed greater orbital widths, nasal widths, anterior cranial base lengths and lower facial heights, as well as smaller upper facial heights, palatal lengths, head widths, maxillary lengths, widths, and heights, more acute cranial base angles coupled with more open, rotated mandibles (larger Go angles) and less convex faces. Mothers of non-syndromic unilateral complete cleft lip and palate or non-syndromic bilateral complete cleft lip and palate children consistently displayed greater nasal widths, anterior cranial base lengths and lower facial heights, as well as a smaller palatal lengths, maxillary lengths, and more acute cranial base angles coupled with more open, rotated mandibles and less convex faces. Stepwise discriminant function analysis could correctly classify 84.2% of the fathers of non-syndromic unilateral complete cleft lip and palate children, 87.4% of the fathers of non-syndromic bilateral complete cleft lip and palate children, 80.1% of the mothers of non-syndromic unilateral complete cleft lip and palate children, and 81.7% of the mothers of non-syndromic bilateral complete cleft lip and palate children using just nasal width, Gonial angle, palatal length and cranial base angle.Fathers of non-syndromic incomplete cleft palate children tended to have larger anterior cranial base lengths, palatal lengths, mandible lengths, heights, and width, greater head widths, nasal widths and palatal widths, shorter anterior mid-faces, as well as larger maxillary widths. Mothers of non-syndromic incomplete cleft palate children tended to have larger anterior cranial base lengths, palatal lengths, mandible lengths, heights, and widths, greater nasal widths and palatal widths, as well as larger maxillary widths. Stepwise discriminant function analysis could correctly classify 88.6% of the fathers of non-syndromic incomplete cleft palate children and 78.4% of the mothers of non-syndromic incomplete cleft palate children using just nasal width, palatal width, both length and width of mandible body.The results indicated that the healthy parents of the patients with non-syndromic cleft lip and/or palate show distinct characteristics in craniofacial morphology. The differences in the parental craniofacial morphology are relevant to the cleft lip and(or) palate subtype (cleft lip only/cleft lip and palate/cleft palate only) possessed by their offspring, as well as the severity of the cleft, while irrelevant to the gender of the patient and the side of the cleft(left or right). The severer the cleft is, the more obvious the parental craniofacial feathers are. In general, the characteristics are more distinct in the fathers of cleft patients than in the mothers. The rigorous including criterion of the subjects involved in experimental group is necessary for the good persuasion of the correlative studies.