Premium
A morphometric analysis of developmental instability in children born with unilateral cleft lip and palate
Author(s) -
Ceuninck Kristyna,
Starbuck John M.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
clinical anatomy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.667
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1098-2353
pISSN - 0897-3806
DOI - 10.1002/ca.23281
Subject(s) - medicine , orthodontics , multivariate analysis , cone beam computed tomography , dentistry , computed tomography , surgery
Unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) is a congenital deformity that occurs due to inadequate merging of the nasal and maxillary prominences during fetal development. Randomly distributed bilateral asymmetries known as fluctuating asymmetry (FA) occur in normally symmetric organisms when evolved mechanisms of developmental stability or equilibrium are disturbed by genetic, environmental, or unknown factors. Here, we hypothesize that facial skeleton FA will be increased in a sample of individuals born with UCLP ( n = 24) relative to sex‐ and age‐matched controls ( n = 24). To test this hypothesis, 23 anatomical landmarks were measured on individual anonymized cone‐beam computerized tomography (CBCT) images in children and adolescents (7–17 years). For each individual, 81 pairs of linear distances were used to estimate FAs across the face. To explore sample variation and statistical differences, a principal components analysis and Euclidean Distance Matrix Analysis multivariate bootstrap approach were carried out. Samples show some separation in multivariate space with 44.44% of FA differences being significantly different. The magnitude of FA was larger in the UCLP sample for every significant measurement. The magnitude of significant FA is highest near regions derived from the maxillary and nasal prominences, such as the nasal aperture. These results are useful for medical and dental practitioners when developing treatment options for children and adolescents with UCLP. Clin. Anat. 32:206–211, 2019. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.