Objective: To report the patterns of cleft lip and/or cleft palate in Saudi Arabia from data collected at a tertiary care hospital.
Design and setting: King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Riyadh.
Patients: All the cleft lip and/or cleft palate patients registered in the Cleft Lip/Palate and Craniofacial Anomalies Registry from June 1999 to December 2005.
Results: Retrospectively, 807 cases of cleft lip and/or palate were registered. There were 451 boys and 356 girls. Cleft lip and palate was more common (387) than isolated cleft palate (294) and isolated cleft lip (122). Boys predominated in cleft lip and palate and cleft lip; whereas, girls predominated in isolated cleft palate, with boy to girl ratios of 1.6:1, 1.2:1, and 0.9:1 for cleft lip and/or palate, isolated cleft lip, and isolated cleft palate, respectively. The Riyadh region had more cases (32.0%) than the Asir (15.6%) and Eastern (14.6%) regions. Parents of 439 individuals had consanguineous marriages. A positive family history of cleft was seen in 224 cases. Of 238 cases with associated anomalies, 91 had congenital heart disease. Of the children with isolated cleft palate, 40.5% had associated anomalies, whereas only 23.0% of the children with isolated cleft lip or cleft lip and palate had associated malformations.
Conclusion: The pattern of cleft observed in this study does not differ significantly from those reported in the literature for Arab populations.