Maxillary basal arch forms in operated adult patients with cleft lip and palate using root apices: A pilot study.

Objectives: The purpose was to identify the maxillary basal arch forms utilizing the root apices and compare the maxillary basal arch form of groups with cleft lip and palate (CLP) and normal group.

Materials And Methods: This study included 30 patients (21.8 ± 3.5 years old) with unilateral CLP (ULCP group) and 30 patients (20.9 ± 2.2 years old) with bilateral CLP (BCLP group). The normal group consisted of 30 non-cleft patients (21.2 ± 2.3 years old) with normal occlusion. Three-dimensional (3D) Cartesian coordinates of the root apices of each tooth were determined using cone-beam computed tomography. The 3D coordinates were projected onto the palatal plane to create the 2D coordinates. Thereafter, the basal arch forms were constructed by the Procrustes superimposition. Finally, For the basal arch form comparisons among groups, the inter-root widths were measured.

Results: Both CLP groups had a narrower inter-root width than the normal group. The BCLP group had significantly narrower premolar and molar widths than the UCLP group (P < .05). Especially, the inter-first molar width of the UCLP and BCLP groups was 3.7 ± 0.7 (P < .001) and 6.6 ± 0.8 (P < .001) mm smaller than that of the normal group, respectively.

Conclusions: We used the root apices to identify the basal arch forms. The basal arch form of patients with CLP was narrower than that of the normal group. The basal arch form of patients with BCLP was narrower than that of patients with UCLP. Our findings may help clinicians better comprehend basal arch forms in patients with CLP and transverse discrepancies.