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Cite this article:
Azeez Butali, Peter Mossey. Epidemiology of orofacial clefts in Africa: Methodological challenges in ascertainment. The Pan African Medical Journal 2009;2:5 Key words: Epidemiology, orofacial clefts, Africa Permanent link: http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/article/2/5/full Received: 06/02/2009 - Accepted: 27/04/2009 - Published: 30/04/2009 © Azeez Butali et al. The Pan African Medical Journal - ISSN 1937-8688. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Epidemiology of Orofacial clefts in Africa: Methodological challenges in ascertainment
Dr A. Butali 1, Professor P.A Mossey 2&
1PhD candidate and 2Professor of Craniofacial abnormalities, Department of Dental Public health and Health Psychology, Dundee Dental Hospital and School, Park Place, Dundee., Scotland U.K, DD1 4HR., (WHO collaboration centres for craniofacial abnormalities)
&Corresponding author
Dundee Dental Hospital and School, Park Place, Dundee, Scotland. U.K, DD1 4HR, Tel: 0044(0)1382425761, Fax: 0044 (0)138220632
To carry out a systematic review of the birth prevalence of cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CLP) and cleft palate (CP) in Africa based on available published data.
Methods
Using the Cochrane search strategy and the following keywords words “cleft palate”, “prevalence”, “incidence”, “cleft lip” and “Africa” to screen Ovid Medline {1966 to March 2007), Cinahl {1982-March 2007}, Pub Med, Scopus, and Web-Google.
All identified published, prospective and retrospective studies on the birth prevalence of CLP and CP in Africa were included. The dates, location, sources, number of births (live births, still births, number of cleft cases, prevalence rates, sex ratio, cleft types, and clefts with associated anomalies were extracted.
Results
Ascertainment of cases was through the hospitals. Overall there were 57 CL/P, 56 CL and 36 CP reported from all the studies. From seven studies combined, 21 males and 20 females had CL, 10 males and 22 females with CP and 26 males and 24 females with CL/P. There were 3 cases with CL/P, 2 with CP and 2 with CL from the three studies that reported clefts with associated anomalies.
Conclusion
For an improved ascertainment of cleft cases, there is a need to set up a birth defects surveillance system in the form of a national birth registry. Future studies should then aim to include the entire population in geographically defined regions. Reliable data on incidence is an essential pre-requisite for studies into aetiology and prevention.
