Dental Caries in Saudi Cleft Lip and Palate Patients Attending a Teaching Dental Institution

Keywords: Cleft lip, Cleft palate, Dental caries, Oral hygiene, Saudi.<br>Abstract. The aim of this study was to investigate the dental caries experience in a group of patients with cleft<br>lip/palate (CLP) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A retrospective study was designed to review the dental files of all CLP<br>patients referred to the College of Dentistry, King Saud University (KSU) between 1999 and 2006. Data including:<br>demographic information, type of dentition, attendance to the CLP clinic, oral hygiene, treatment setting used, and<br>caries status were recorded for each patient. A total of 165 dental files of cleft affected patients (108 male, 57<br>female) were included in the study. Only 21.2% of the patients were first seen before the age of 6 years. The<br>majority of the patients (61.8%) had poor oral hygiene, and about 50% of the patients did not regularly attend to<br>the dental clinic. Primary teeth were more carious (55.4%) than the permanent teeth (41.2%). The results of this<br>study show that: Patients affected with CLP treated at KSU had a high level of dental caries experience, and twothirds<br>of them had poor oral hygiene.