Oral Mucosal Lesions In Children With And Without Cleft Lip: A Case Control Study

An orofacial cleft is the fourth common congenital malformations in humans. It is caused by an incomplete fusion of maxillary processes during 4th week to 12th week of intrauterine life. Oral mucosal lesion is an abnormal alteration in the mucosal surface. It may interfere with the physiologic functions such as mastication, swallowing and speech. Oral mucosal lesions also seen in children with cleft lip and palate. Since these children and their parents give more importance to the surgical correction of their clefts, chances to miss certain oral mucosal lesions tends to occur. Hence a study was conducted to assess the presence of oral mucosal lesions in children with cleft lip, and also compare with children without cleft lip. Retrospective data collected from 89,000 case records from June 2019 to March 2020 were taken for the study. Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the present study consisted of 20 children divided into two groups: children with cleft lip and children without cleft lip. In both groups, presence of any oral mucosal lesions were verified and data was tabulated. The data was subjected to Mann-Whitney test using SPSS software. Children in both the groups (children with and without cleft lip) did not have any type of oral mucosal lesions, which was not statistically significant. Within the limitations of the present study, there is no evidence of oral mucosal lesions in children with and without cleft lip