Abstract
Objective
To compare the hyoid bone position in patients with clefts of lip, alveolus, and palate with orthodontic patients with no cleft.
Design
Retrospective cephalometric long-term study.
Patients
Lateral cephalograms of 23 patients with a complete unilateral cleft were compared with those of 24 orthodontic patients with no cleft with an Angle class 1 occlusion. Twenty-five of the patients were girls, and 22 were boys. The age of the patients with cleft at the beginning of the study was 8.1 ± 0.7 years and at the end 14.8 ± 0.6 years. The patients without cleft were 8.4 ± 0.8 years old at the beginning and 14.4 ± 0.6 years at the end of the study.
Main Outcome Measures
Cephalometric analysis was used to determine the skull growth pattern as well as the positions of the head and hyoid bone twice in all 47 persons.
Results
With increasing age of the patients, the skull growth pattern changed from vertical to horizontal growth, but no significant differences were found between patients with and without cleft. Head position did not differ significantly between patients with and without cleft. However, hyoid bone position differed significantly. The hyoid in patients with cleft was located more caudally and more anteriorly than in patients without cleft.
Conclusion
The hyoid bone in a subset of north German adolescents with complete unilateral cleft lip and palate was found to be caudal and anterior, compared with a control group.