Interesting Facts

facts

This page covers interesting cleft-related facts and trivia. We're especially interested in hearing from medical professionals.

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The lowest cleft prevalence rates

are reported for African Americans.

The highest cleft prevalence rates

are reported for Native Americans and Asians.

Hare Lip

or "hair lip" are sometimes used colloquially to describe the cleft lip condition because of the resemblance to a hare's lip.

Between 1 in 600 - 800

is the ratio of cleft palate births.

The history of cleft lip and palate surgery

extends back as far as 400 BC. Hippocrates & Galen (400 BC and 150 AD respectively) mention cleft lips. In 390 BC a cleft lip was successfully joined in China whilst cleft lip operations have been referred to several times during the middle ages.

In 1764, Le Monnier, a French dentist, successfully repaired a cleft velum. In 1816, Karl Ferdinand von Gräfe, a noted surgeon who was a pioneer in early German plastic surgery, is credited with performing the first velar repair. The first American velar closure was performed in 1816 by J.C. Warren