Ma. Darzi et Na. Chowdri, OBLIQUE FACIAL CLEFTS - A REPORT OF TESSIER NUMBER-3, NUMBER-4, NUMBER-5, AND NUMBER-9 CLEFTS, The Cleft palate-craniofacial journal, 30(4), 1993, pp. 414-415
The oblique facial cleft is an extremely rare and disfiguring congenit
al anomaly of the face. Tessier (1990) proposed an anatomic classifica
tion of the facial, craniofacial, and laterofacial clefts that was a g
reat advance in the study of these clefts. The clefts were found to oc
cur with an incidence of 1.43 to 4.85 in 100,000 births (Kawamoto, 197
6). The exact incidence of these unusual facial clefts is unknown, and
estimates vary widely because of the rarity of their occurrence and t
he lack of standard methods of data collection. To adequately examine
the occurrence of oblique clefts, the medical community must be aware
of the problem, and new cases should be presented. On the basis of cli
nical, radiologic, and surgical examinations, soft tissue and skeletal
disruptions of three patients with the most rare craniofacial clefts
(Tessier 3, 4, 5, and 9) are presented.