Soft-Tissue Changes in Unilateral Cleft Lip and Palate Patients after Non-surgical Maxillary Advancement with Face Mask Therapy - A Prospective Cohort Study.

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to evaluate soft-tissue changes in Egyptian cleft lip/palate (CLP) patients after conservative non-surgical maxillary advancement using face mask therapy.

METHODS: This prospective cohort study included 20 Egyptian patients with unilateral CLP, six females and 14 males, ranging in age from 10 to 15 years and suffering from moderate maxillary deficiency. These patients had been chosen randomly from the Oro-dental Genetics Clinic at the National Research Centre, Egypt. For lateral cephalometry tracing and superimposition of pre-operative and post-treatment data, this study used Dolphin 11.0 software. Subnasal (Sn), pronasal (Pn), soft tissue pogonion (Pg), labial superior (Ls), stomion superioris (Ss), labiale inferior (Li), stomion inferioris (Si) and soft tissue Menton (Me) were the soft tissue points used in this analysis.

RESULTS: All of the cases were successful and demonstrated a positive response to the orthodontic traction. All post-operative linear measurements of the measured soft-tissue points showed statistically significant advancement ( P = 0.05) except for pronasal linear measurements, which did not show a significant difference post-treatment ( P = 0.84).

DISCUSSION: With the use of the face mask procedure, both upper and lower lip soft-tissue points improved significantly, but nasal points remained unchanged, requiring more management.