Category: Cleft Palate

University of Iowa researchers and collaborators have identified new genetic mutations that likely cause the common form of cleft lip and palate.The results could eventually help clinicians predict a family’s risk of having more children with the condition. The findings appear in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mice engineered to have cleft palates can be rescued in utero by injecting the mothers with a small molecule to correct the defect, say scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. In addition to shedding light on the biology of cleft palate, the research raises hopes that it may one day be possible to prevent many types of human birth defects by using a similar vaccination-type technique in pregnant women likely to have affected fetuses.

A new study finds that women who take folic acid supplements early in their pregnancy can substantially reduce their baby’s chances of being born with a facial cleft.Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, found that 0.4 milligrams (mg) a day of folic acid reduced by one third the baby’s risk of isolated cleft lip (with or without cleft palate).

Pioneering new research into cleft lip and palate could open the door to babies with certain craniofacial disorders being successfully treated in the womb.University of Manchester researchers have uncovered the causes behind two genetic conditions that lead to facial anomalies including clefts, where the lip and often the roof of the mouth, or palate, fail to form properly.

Cranio-maxillofacial surgery is a medical specialty focusing on facial and skull reconstruction. This surgery can help patients with such disorders as cleft palate, malformations of the upper or lower jaw, and problems with the facial skeleton due to injury. Intensive pre-operative planning is needed not only to ensure that the medical purposes of the surgery are achieved, but also to give patients a sense of what their faces will look like after the surgery is performed.

Researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health report in the current issue of the journal Science that a much-studied gene called SUMO1, when under expressed, can cause cleft lip and palate, one of the world’s most common birth defects.With several genes already implicated in causing cleft lip and palate, the authors note their addition to the list comes with a unique biological twist.

A global research network is needed if scientists are ever going to understand and prevent cleft palate, say experts at the first World Health Organization Collaborating Centre set up to develop such a structure.

Results from a Mayo Clinic laboratory study in animals suggest that using distraction osteogenesis, a procedure that uses the mechanical force of an appliance to lengthen soft tissue and bone, may be a feasible and effective method to repair cleft palate in the future. Cleft palate is a common birth defect in which a child is born with a gap in the roof of the mouth. This condition occurs in one out of 700 to 1,000 births in the United States.

Pioneering research that could lead to a breakthrough in understanding the causes of cleft palate in newborn babies has begun in Manchester, UK. Dr Jill Dixon, in The University of Manchester’s School of Dentistry, has been awarded a three-year New Investigator Award by the Medical Research Council to look into the distressing birth defect.

An international team of researchers has identified a gene variant that is a major contributor to oral clefts and triples the risk of recurrence in affected families, it was reported today in The New England Journal of Medicine. “Cleft lip and cleft palate are among the most common birth defects in the United States,” says Nancy S. Green, M.D., medical director of the March of Dimes, which helped fund the study.