ABSTRACT

Prenatal diagnosis of cleft lip and palate is important in prenatal counselling and psychological adaptation of the parents. The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of the obstetric ultrasonography and to document the etiologic risk factors and the demographic characteristics.

477 primary cleft patients were involved in this study. Details of obstetric ultrasonography, etiologic risk factors and demographics of the patients are recorded. For evaluation of the ultrasonography; cleft type, the timing of diagnosis, the center of follow up, speciality of the ultrasonographer are recorded. Prenatal evaluation was considered to be successful, partially successful or unsuccessful.

Among the 477 patients, 223 (46.8%) were female and 254 (53.2%) were male. 229 patient had cleft lip and palate, whereas 33.1% had isolated cleft palate and 21.3 % had isolated cleft lip. The leading risk factor that the patients possess was lack of preconceptional folic acid intake. 15.1% had positive family history and 11.8% had consanguinity. 43.0% had their obstetric evaluation in the public hospitals, whereas 40.7% had been evaluated in private conditions and 16.4% were followed up in university hospitals. The most accurate evaluation was among the isolated cleft lip patients (51.0%) and the diagnostic accuracy among the isolated cleft palate was found to be 1.9%. The significantly most successful results are observed in the private conditions (45.4%) (p<0.001).

Cleft lip and palate deformities should be followed in multidisciplinary manner with maternal fetal medicine specialist involved in the team. Further studies should be planned and it should always be considered that prenatal diagnosis of congenital deformities like cleft lip and palate provides both psychosocial adaptation of the parents and ideal feeding and development of the baby. Recent developments in the technology of the radiological imaging modalities should be used widely for prenatal diagnosis of such anomalies.