Surgical Treatment of Lip Pits in Van der Woude Syndrome: A Preliminary Retrospective Study of 24 Patients
, , e | 19 giu 2024
Article Category: Case Study
Pubblicato online: 19 giu 2024
Pagine: 45 - 50
Ricevuto: 16 mar 2024
Accettato: 23 mag 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.34763/jmotherandchild.20242801.d-24-00020
Parole chiave
© 2024 Łukasz Wieprzowski et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Background
Van der Woude syndrome (VWS) is a rare congenital malformation characterized by lower lip pits among patients with a lip and/or palate cleft. It is transmitted by an autosomal dominant inheritance with variable expressivity.
Methods
The study group consisted of 24 consecutive patients (13 males and 11 females) with VWS operated on at a single center between 2009 and 2022. They suffered from: bilateral cleft lip and palate – 6 patients; unilateral cleft lip and palate – 9 patients; cleft lip – 1 patient; and isolated cleft palate – 8 patients.
Results
In 16 (66%) cases pits of lower lip occurred on both side of midline, while in 8 (34%) the pits were detected unilaterally. The primary cleft repairs were performed according to one-stage principle at the mean age of 8.6 months (SD 1.4, range 6–12). In all patients lower lip pits repairs were performed after the primary cleft repairs as a separate procedure at the mean age of 37 months (SD 11.3 range 14–85). The mean number of all primary repairs of the syndrome—both cleft defect and lower lip pits repairs—was 2.46. Nine patients (37.5%) required additional secondary corrections of the lower lip due to the poor aesthetic post-operative outcome.
Conclusions
The frequent need for secondary corrections of residual lower lip deformities indicates the considerable difficulties in obtaining a satisfactory outcome of the repairs to lip pits caused by VWS. The average number of the primary surgical interventions in evaluated material remained low.