Cleft Lip Surgery

This surgery involves not only closing the cleft as well as providing lip with a best possible shape. Present day repairs tend to restore the three dimensional structure of the lip and the nose and also essentially include a good muscle repair to provide normal movements to the lip. There are different types of repairs and different surgeons have their own preferences. Most surgeons will repair some part of cleft palate with the lip repair,

Following a lip repair most common observation is scar contraction leading to lifting up of the lip margin, with time the scars softens and lip shape stabilises. This may take 6 months or more, during this period it’s our practise to give treatment for scar improvement. Nasal conformers or stents are silicone rubber made structures used to improve the nasal shape by exerting mechanical pressure on nose after surgery in some cases, the kids need to retain them inside the nose and these devices need to be modified from time to time.

Advanced Most of the present day repair can be broadly classified into 3 groups, Rotation advancement technique, triangular flap techniques and straight line repairs. In our practice we do rotation advancement technique in most cases and straight line repair in selected cases. Triangular flap techniques leave a triangular scar on the lip which does not correlate with the philtra ridges and are in our opinion best avoided.