Prevalence of Transposed Teeth as Seen on Panoramic Radiographs in Children with Cleft Lip and Palate

Objective To assess the prevalence of complete and incomplete transpositions of teeth in subjects with repaired cleft lip and/or palate. Design Retrospective review. Panoramic radiographs from 364 subjects with repaired cleft lip and/or palate and with or without syndromes were compared with 364 panoramic radiographs from noncleft controls. The percentages of completely or incompletely transposed teeth, missing teeth, and pegged teeth were recorded for each subject and control. Setting Primary care dental clinic in a university affiliated, not-for-profit hospital. Main Outcome Measures Presence of complete and incomplete transposed teeth, missing teeth, and pegged teeth detected on subjects' panoramic radiographs. Results This study revealed greater prevalence of tooth transposition in subjects with cleft lip and/or palate (52/364 = 14.3%) as compared with noncleft controls (1/364 = 0.3%; P < .001). Conclusions There was a higher prevalence of tooth transpositions in subjects with repaired cleft lip and/or palate with/or without syndromes than in noncleft controls. There was a weak association between transpositions and missing teeth (P = .12) and between transpositions and pegged teeth (.23).