Double tongue, intraoral anomalies, and cleft palate--case reports and a discussion of developmental pathology.

OBJECTIVE: Isolated cleft palate is the most common presentation of the nonsyndromic cleft lip/palate combinations and is multifactorial in etiology. We report two cases of children with clefts of the secondary palate coexistent with double tongue and in either case mandibular epulis or superiorly displaced salivary gland. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: In each case, the palatal cleft correlated anatomically with the intraoral space-occupying lesion. The ratio of tongue volume to intraoral volume during palatogenesis is discussed with reference to the pathogenesis of cleft palate. These clinical cases propose the model of a unifying sequence of developmental events whereby deformation of palatal shelf elevation results in secondary palatal clefting.