부산대학교 도서관

Cleft lip and palate is a condition with the potential to impact the lifetime of a patient, affecting overall health, appearance, communication, facial growth, hearing, eating, dental health, and psychological well-being. To effectively manage these multiple effects, the treatment of cleft lip and/or palate requires involvement of multiple healthcare specialists. This multidisciplinary management is difficult to coordinate so is often delivered by extended multidisciplinary healthcare teams. The early management of a child with a cleft lip and/or palate centres on the well-being of the child. The focus is on feeding, breathing, and managing medical comorbidities. Care can require extensive input from paediatric medical specialists, and needs to occur prior to any surgical management of the cleft lip or palate. This chapter discusses the surgical and perisurgical management of the primary cleft lip and/or palate including manipulation of the cleft lip prior to definitive surgery, primary lip surgery, primary palate surgery, and primary closure of the alveolar cleft with an assumption of medical well-being.