Title

Oral health-related quality of life in patients with cleft lip and palate: A cross-sectional observational study

Authors

Nun Sangi¹, Mayank Malik², Nikil Kumar Jain³,*, Prajwal Prabhu⁴, D. Chethan Kumar⁵ & Ananya Madiyal⁶

Affiliation

¹Department of Orthodontics, Vul Zual Dental Clinic, Chanmari, Aizawl, Mizoram; ²Department of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, Kalinga Institute of Dental Sciences, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India; ³Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Yogita Dental College and Hospital, KHED (Ratnagiri), Maharashtra, India; ⁴Department of Orthodontics, Dayananda Sagar College of Dental Sciences, Bengaluru, India; ⁵Department of Orthodontics, Sri Siddhartha Dental college, Affiliated to Sri Siddhartha Academy of Higher Education, Tumkur, Karnataka, India; ⁶Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, AB Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences, Deralakatte, Mangalore-575018, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Nun Sangi - E-mail: drnunsangi@gmail.com
Mayank Malik - E-mail: mayankamalik97@gmail.com
Nikil Kumar Jain - E-mail: nikiljainomfs@gmail.com
Prajwal Prabhu - E-mail: dr.prajwalprabhu@gmail.com
D. Chethan Kumar - E-mail: drchethankumar83@gmail.com
Ananya Madiyal - E-mail: ananyamadiyal@gmail.com; Phone: +91 9538840189

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received September 1, 2026; Revised September 30, 2026; Accepted September 30, 2026, Published September 30, 2026

Abstract

Cleft lip and palate adversely affects oral health, function, speech, esthetics and oral health-related quality of life. A cross-sectional study evaluated 36 repaired cleft lip and palate patients aged 10–18 years using clinical and functional outcome measures. Patients with bilateral clefts had significantly higher DMFT, OHI-S, speech impairment and poor oral health-related quality of life than unilateral cleft patients (p<0.05). Severe oral health-related quality of life impairment was observed in 50.0% of bilateral cases compared with 11.1% of unilateral cases (p=0.006). Thus, bilateral cleft lip and palate is associated with poor oral health and function, emphasizing the need for comprehensive multidisciplinary rehabilitation.

Keywords

Cleft lip and palate (CLP), oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL), oral rehabilitation, craniofacial anomalies, multidisciplinary rehabilitation

Citation

Sangi et al. Bioinformation 22(9): 5962-5966 (2026)

Edited by

Ruby Singh

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.