Orofacial clefts are common birth defects of multifactorial etiology. Several novel approaches have recently been applied to investigate the causes of clefts. These include examining Mendelian forms of clefting to identify genes that might also be implicated in isolated clefting, analyzing chromosomal rearrangements in which clefting is part of the resultant phenotype, studying animal models in...

The findings of a previous epidemiological study on oral clefts (599 children) were tested in an independent sample of 194 children, using the same source as for the previous study (Finnish Register of Congenital Malformations). Several of the earlier results--such as seasonal variation and associations between clefts and parental age, social factors, and emotional stress--were not reproduced. ...

This paper begins with a brief overview of the literature on it-clefts. Following this, an approach to the study of it-clefts in English from a Role and Reference Grammar theory perspective (following Van Valin and LaPolla 1997, Van Valin 2003) is presented and several key issues highlighted. The analysis also draws from work by Lambrecht (2001) and Davidse (2000). It is demonstrated that a com...

  Background: Several studies have examined the effects of folic acid fortification on the occurrence of orofacial clefts. This study was carried out to evaluate the impact of flour fortification with folic acid on oral clefts in Northern Iran.   Methods : In this hospital based study from March 2006 to September 2009, we screened the total number of live births at all hospitals in Golestan pro...

This pal~;r presents an analysis and synthesis of the factors relevant to the decision to use a cleft construction in discourse. The model described, based on a corpus of 587 naturally-occurring cleft constructions in written and spoken discourse, consists of two stages. The first stage concerus the decision to use a cleft construction rather than a non-cleft; the second describes the factors r...

A retrospective study was undertaken of 3100 facial cleft cases in order to analyse and determine the incidence of the isolated cleft of the hard palate. This presented as a very rare occurrence in three different variations, each having specific clinical appearances. The literature search revealed three publications each describing a single isolated hard palate cleft. However, these publicatio...

Orbital hypertelorism is an increased distance between the bony orbits and can be caused by frontonasal malformations, craniofacial clefts, frontoethmoidal encephaloceles, glial tumors or dermoid cysts of the root of the nose, and various syndromic or chromosomal disorders. We report a series of 7 cases of hypertelorism that were treated in our hospital. The underlying causes in our series were...