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Introduction: The management of cleft lip, alveolar and palate sequelae remains problematic today. To optimize it, we tried to establish a new clinical index for diagnostic and prognostic purposes., Technical Note: Seven tissue indicators, that we consider to be important in the management of alveolar sequelae, are listed by assigning them individual scores. The final score, obtained by adding together the individual scores, can take a low, high or maximum value., Discussion: We propose a new classification (ACS: Alveolar Cleft Score) that guides the therapeutic team to a prognosis approach, in terms of the recommended surgical and prosthetic reconstruction, the type of medical care required, and the preventive and supportive therapy to establish. Current studies are often only based on a standard radiological evaluation of the alveolar bone height at the cleft site. However, the gingival, the osseous and the cellular areas bordering the alveolar cleft sequelae induce many clinical parameters, which should be reflected in the morphological diagnosis, to better direct the surgical indications and the future prosthetic requirements, and to best maintain successful long term aesthetic and functional results., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Is the poor potential of growth an ineluctable consequence of mesodermal deficiency? Should we agree with the idea that all protocols are equivalent? Actually, these opinions reflect the empiricism of previous generations. We must now become rational and develop a project without compromise to achieve good functions at primary surgery. 'The normal structures are present on either side of the cleft, only modified by the fact of the cleft...' Victor Veau's hypothesis is the conclusion of rigorous anatomical and embryological research. Our current knowledge of the pathological anatomy allows for a better restoration of the normal anatomy. Anatomy is nothing if it is not functional. Every thing should be done to control the healing process to allow the best expression and interaction of the various functions, especially for those concerning nasal ventilation and masticatory efficiency. To correct the deformity, the cleft surgeon must perform a wide subperiosteal and subperichondrial elevation and must learn the skills of this accurate work to preserve the integrity of very fragile structures. The primary treatment must take into account a rational and uncompromising selection of the age of the first operation, of the successive procedures, and their chronology to benefit from the growth spurt of the maxilla, and to avoid the worse scars resulting from secondary epithelialization. Finally, if nasal breathing is the most important function concerning facial growth, it is essential to restore this normal function at the time of the first operation. The oral breathing pattern set at the time of the first operation leaves a cortical imprint that is very difficult to erase, even after clearing the nasal airways. The results of the functional approach we have used in the last decade are particularly consistent and very convincing. In this ambitious and demanding program, the patient comes first; we decrease the burden for him and his family, and give them the benefit of a good social life before school age.

The authors report three cases of Median Cleft of the upper lip, a clinical entity really deserving the term of "hare lip", a very ancient denomination who dates back to the Tang Dynasty and unfairly used to describe the usual lateral clefts of the lip. The denominations of "true" and "false" median cleft lips recovering respectively such different embryopathic realities as clefts of the median element with varying degrees of vertical separation and as agenesis of the fronto-nasal process accompanied with cerebral anomalies are no more used now. Median clefts of the upper lip can be included in the "neurocristopathies" by less or more precocious dysneurulation of the fronto-nasal process creating anomalies from various single midline defects of the upper lip of our three cases, to associated midline defects like in the Median Cleft face syndrome (fronto-nasal dysplasia) described by De Myer and Sedano to holoprosencephaly (arhinencephaly), which are rarely associated.

The authors present the creation of a computed programme (Cleftor) which examines the terminology used in the pathology of cleft palates. The malformed anatomy is simplified and superimposed with embryological data. A classification which includes all possible malformation is used. Surgical treatment had also advanced, gestures practised in the past are reviewed and defined to give authors a common basis for discussion when it is time to appreciate results concerning such or such methods or techniques. Thanks to a strict control of facts; the programme gives another idea of the treatment and above all, of the results from that can be called chronic pathology. The Cleftor programme is also a means of communication creating perhaps a supplementary chance of success for a treatment that everyone admits to and considers as always difficult.