The orthodontist, an essential partner in CLP treatment.

OBJECTIVES Patients with orofacial clefts need multidisciplinary care, which should be provided by teams of specialists working in this field. Usually the following disciplines participate in such teams: paediatrics, plastic and reconstructive surgery, orthodontics, genetics, social work or nursing, ENT, speech therapy, maxillofacial surgery, prosthetic dentistry, psychology and oral hygiene. DESIGN Narrative review. RESULTS An overview is given of the orthodontic treatment protocol and the role of the orthodontist in cleft palate treatment from birth until 20 years of age for a child with a complete unilateral or bilateral cleft. CONCLUSIONS The orthodontist has proven to be an essential partner in the cleft palate team. The orthodontist is not only responsible for the active orthodontic and facial orthopaedic treatment of the child with a cleft. More importantly, he or she is also the guardian of the child's maxillofacial growth. By nature, orthodontists have a long-term treatment perspective in mind, which will assist the team in their consideration of treatment techniques, sequence and timing in relation to the effect on maxillofacial growth. Moreover, standardised records collected by the orthodontist provide a valuable basis for retrospective studies of treatment outcome and inter-centre comparisons. Finally, in recent times, orthodontists seem to be quite often the motor behind large-scale inter-centre randomised clinical trials in the field of CLP.