OBJECTIVE To define the intrinsic (hypoplasia) and extrinsic (deformational) contributions to congenital nasal deformities and the potential of a carrier state for orofacial clefting. METHODS Retrospective case series. RESULTS The factors affecting 4 congenital nasal deformities are postulated after contrasting the patient's characteristics. CONCLUSIONS The spectrum of congenital nasal de...

The principle objective of presurgical nasoalveolar molding (NAM) is to reduce the severity of the initial cleft deformity. This enables the surgeon and the patient to enjoy the benefits associated with a repair of a cleft deformity that is of minimal severity. Retraction of the premaxilla, presurgical elongation of the columella, correction of the nasal cartilage deformity, alignment of the cl...

The cleft nasal deformity is a complex challenge in plastic surgery involving the skin, cartilage, mucosa, and skeletal platform. Ever since Blair and Brown first described the intricacies of the cleft pathology in 1931, the appropriate approach has been extensively debated in the literature with respect to timing, technique, and extent of surgical intervention. In this article, the authors rev...

The Mashhad University of Medical Sciences and the Sheikh Hospital in Mashhad sponsored a Cleft Lip and Palate Workshop 30 April - 1 May 2009. During the Workshop, 6 surgical cases were performed and televised live to the audience attending the conference. Two of those cases were unilateral cleft lip repairs. The surgical technique used to repair these patients by the primary author (JGM) is a ...

BACKGROUND Severity of the primary unilateral cleft lip/nose deformity (UCL/N) is postulated to play a key role in postoperative complications, aesthetic result, and need for secondary surgery. There is no validated and widely accepted classification scheme of initial cleft severity. The purpose of this study was to validate the Unilateral Cleft Lip Cleft Severity Index as a reliable tool for e...

The correction of cleft lip nasal deformity is challenging and there have been numerous methods described in the literature with little demonstrated technical superiority of one over another. The common clinical issues associated with cleft lip nasal deformity are its lack of symmetry, alar collapse on the affected side, obtuse nasal labial angle, short nasal length, loss of tip definition, and...

BACKGROUND The whistle deformity is one of the common sequelae of secondary cleft lip deformities. Santos reported using a crossed-denuded flap for primary cleft lip repair to prevent a vermilion notching. The authors modified this technique to correct the whistle deformity, calling their version the cross-muscle flap. METHODS From May 2005 to January 2011, 14 secondary unilateral cleft lip p...

For both unilateral and bilateral cleft lip nasal deformity, the general trend has been toward operation on the cleft lip nose at the time of initial lip surgery. Secondary surgery to further modify the nasal shape is often necessary, and many patients desire complete septorhinoplasty in their teen years. Many different procedures have been suggested to address the problem, but few techniques h...