Incidence
Posted on March 22nd, 2007
Cleft Lip and Palate in Denmark, 1976-1981
Full title: Cleft Lip and Palate in Denmark, 1976-1981: Epidemiology, Variability, and Early Somatic Development.
[Summary]1
This investigation describes the incidence and variability of the primary cleft condition in all Danish children born with cleft lip, cleft palate, or both. Denmark has had compulsory reporting of clefts since 1937, and with all procedures carried out in one centre by one surgeon, its reliable and nearly complete data lends itself favourably towards accurate analysis and interpretation.
Main findings;
- Of a total of 359,027 births in Denmark between 1976-1981, 678 were born with cleft lip, cleft palate, or both. This gives an incidence of 1.89 per 1000 live births (1:529). Year by year, this figure varied from 1.77 in 1978 (1:565) to 2.08 in 1977 (1:481).
- The distribution was 33.5% cleft lip only, 39.1% combined cleft lip and palate, and 27.4% cleft palate only.
- Both isolated cleft lip and combined cleft lip and palate were twice as frequent in males as in females.
- Left-sided cleft lips were twice as common as right-sided.
- 13% of unliateral cleft lips were complete clefts.
- 90% of unilateral cleft lip and palates were of a more severe type.
- 38% of bilateral cleft lip and palate patients had complete clefts of both sides, and 70% were complete on one or both sides.
- solated cleft palate was most common among females (60% of group). Females had more severe isolated palatal clefts than males.
- Fourteen of the cleft palate patients exhibited Pierre Robin syndrome, one exhibited Stickler’s syndrome, and one exhibited Apert syndrome.
- 7% of the cleft children had one affected parent, one affected sibling, or both. The figure was 14% for patients with a complete cleft lip, and 18.5% among those with a complete bilateral cleft lip and palate.
- 26 of the 602 patients included in the study had associated congenital defects (c.4.3%).
- The average parental age was found to be exactly the same as the general population.
- The overall trend in the sample indicates that birth weight and length of cleft babies do not differ from normal values. However, males with cleft palate revealed a significantly lower birth weight, and females with cleft palate were significantly shorter. The lower values may be explained by a lower gestation age for cleft palate children.
The study showed an increase in the incidence of clefting on the 1942 figure (1.5 per 1000). The factors alluded to as possibly responsible for the increased incidence include decreased neonatal mortality, environmental factors such as drugs, increased frequency of intermarriage, and childbirths in cleft patients because of better social acceptability and fertility. The incidence reported in this latest study parallels figures for the other Scandinavian countries as those the distribution (except for Finland).
- Jensen, B. L. et al. (1988) Cleft Lip and Palate in Denmark, 1976-1981: Epidemiology, variability, and early somatic development. Cleft Palate Journal. 25:258-269 [↩]
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