Assessment of the correlation between the volume of tongue, oral cavity, tongue/oral cavity volume ratio and the upper airway in unilateral cleft subjects: A CBCT study.

Objectives: The current study was conducted to assess the volume of the tongue, oral cavity, and tongue/oral cavity and their correlation with the volume of the upper airway in cleft subjects compared with the control group.

Methods: The study population included 60 CBCT images from dental school. The sample comprised 30 unilateral cleft patients and 30 sex and age-matched healthy subjects. The CBCT images were imported to the Mimics software in DICOM format. Then, the segmentation process was done in order to create distinct masks for the upper airway, oral cavity, and tongue. The software calculated the volume of the created masks.

Results: The volume of tongue, oral and upper airway were significantly lower in cleft patients than in the control group (P value < 0.05 taken as statistically significant). There was a weak but statistically significant correlation between the U.A.W.V and T.V in both cleft and non-cleft subjects. Additionally, there was a statistically significant correlation between the O.C.V and the U.A.W.V in cleft subjects.

Conclusions: Except than the proportion of tongue/oral cavity volume, other volumetric measurements were significantly lower in cleft subjects than control group. This reveals that clefts are not necessarily more susceptible to obstructive sleep apnea. Also, the positive correlation between the volume of the tongue and oral cavity with the upper airway confirms that early expansion of the maxillary region in clefts helps significantly in increasing their upper airway volume.