Quality improvement of cleft lip and palate treatment.

Improvement of quality of care for children with clefts requires longitudinal assessments of the outcomes of treatment. The aim of this study was to review the teamwork periodically to evaluate the clinical treatment outcome. In this retrospective study, the outcome of the dental arch relationship was studied using a Goslon yardstick between two cohorts of complete unilateral cleft lip and palate patients. Consecutive series of 9-year-old patients (27 boys, 20 girls) born in 1983- 1984 and 1992-1993 from two cleft centers were compared. All the patients were treated according to the same protocol. The results show no statistically significant difference between the cohorts of 1980s and 1990s (P = .170). The treatment results of center A as measured in this study are better than those of center R (P = .003). A possible explanation for this difference in performance can be the fact that the number of surgeons involved in the care in the center R is higher than that in A.