Evaluation of Secondary Alveolar Bone Grafting for Unilateral Complete Cleft Alveolus: A Retrospective Cone Beam Computed Tomography-Based Study.

Background: In patients with cleft lip and palate (CLP), secondary alveolar bone grafting (SABG) with particulate cancellous bone marrow (PCBM) is recommended. Objective: To compare bone graft outcomes in patients with unilateral CLP, when SABG is completed before or after canine tooth eruption (ACE or BCE), as measured by cone beam computed tomography (CBCT). Methods: Patients were allocated into two cohorts, ACE and BCE. The outcomes were evaluated using CBCT, followed by univariate and multifactorial analyses. Results: A total of 468 patients (age 11.61 ± 4.03 years; male/female 288/180) were analyzed, including 282 in the BCE group (9.41 ± 1.59 years, 175/107) and 186 in the ACE group (14.95 ± 4.31 years, 113/73). Although 5-level assessment revealed no significant difference in clinical success rate (>4 points) between the BCE and ACE groups (53.90% vs. 47.85%, p = 0.20), BCE group showed significantly higher rate of bone bridges formation (73.05% vs. 62.90%, p = 0.02), which can be attributed to variations in orthodontic participation and follow-up time. Independent predictors of graft failure were wide cleft, severe oronasal fistula, no palatal bone wall, and insufficient PCBM filling (p < 0.01). Conclusions: SABG should be performed before canine eruption with more aggressive PCBM filling and oral fistula management.

Intraoral Scanning Evaluation Of Maxillary Arch Changes Post Modified Sommerlad Palatoplasty For Around Three Years.

BACKGROUND: To investigate the postoperative effect of dental arch changes in cleft palate patients with modified Sommerlad palatoplasty by intraoral scanning technique in early deciduous dentition children. METHODS: Patients (n=60) with non-syndromic unilateral complete cleft lip with palate (UCLP) or cleft palate only (CPO) treated by modified Sommerlad palatoplasty without relaxed excision before 18 months old and 95 healthy controls without cleft were included. Three-dimension images of the maxillary dental arches of all subjects aged 3 to 4 years were obtained by intraoral scanning (IOS) technique. Seven parameters including anterior dental arch width (Ar-Al), middle dental arch width (Fr-Fl), posterior dental arch width (Sr-Sl), anterior palatal arch width (Cr-Cl), posterior palatal arch width (Mr-Ml), anterior dental arch length (IP-D) and entire dental arch length (IP-O) were measured. RESULTS: Compared with male group, the Mr-Ml distance of controls in female group statistically decreased (p=0.039) and the Fr-Fl, Sr-Sl, Mr-Ml distance of female patients decreased (p=0.013, p=0.002, p=0.005). The IP-D, IP-O distance of children in UCLP group was shorter than those of CPO children (p＜0.0001, p＜0.0001). Patient group showed decreased distance of Ar-Al, Cr-Cl, IP-D and IP-O and increased distance of Sr-Sl and Mr-Ml compared with control group (p=0.0002, p=0.002, p<0.0001, p<0.0001, p=0.007, p=0.027). CONCLUSION: The results indicated that the modified palatoplasty showed no growth inhibition in the middle, posterior dental arch width, and palatal arch width, though slightly but significantly inhibition in the length of anterior and entire dental arch. CLINICAL QUESTION/ LEVEL OF EVIDNCE: Risk, III.

Identification of putative regulatory single-nucleotide variants in NTN1 gene associated with NSCL/P.

Non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (NSCL/P) is a common polygenetic disease. Although genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identified NTN1 gene as a high-priority candidate of NSCL/P, the comprehensive genetic architecture of NTN1 weren't yet known. Thus, this study aimed to determine full-scale genetic variants of NTN1 for NSCL/P in Chinese Han people. Initially, targeted sequencing of NTN1 gene was performed on 159 NSCL/P patients to identify susceptible single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with NSCL/P. Then, association analysis and burden analysis were separately used to validate the common variants and rare variants identified among large size of samples (1608 NSCL/P cases and 2255 controls). Additionally, NSCL/P subtype association analysis was applied to elucidate the etiology discrepancy of non-syndromic cleft lip with palate (NSCLP) and non-syndromic cleft lip only (NSCLO). Lastly, bioinformatics analysis was performed to annotate and prioritize candidate variants. We found 15 NSCL/P-associated SNPs including rs4791774 (P = 1.10E-08, OR = 1.467, 95% CI: 1.286~1.673) and rs9788972 (P = 1.28E-07, OR = 1.398, 95% CI : 1.235~1.584) originally detected by previous GWASs in Chinese Han ancestry. Four NSCLO risk-associated SNPs and eight specific NSCLP associated SNPs were found. Three SNPs (rs4791331, rs4791774 and rs9900753) were predicted to locate at regulatory region of NTN1. Our study validated the association between NTN1 gene and pathogenesis of NSCL/P and reinforced the hypothesis that NSCLP have a different etiology from NSCLO. We also identified three putative regulatory SNPs in NTN1 gene.

Rs9891446 in NTN1 is associated with right-side cleft lip in Han Chinese population.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to reveal the association between single-nucleotide polymorphism of NTN1 and subtypes of non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (NSCL/P) in Han Chinese Population. DESIGN: Initially, we selected three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) (rs4791331, rs4791774 and rs9891446) in NTN1 from previous genetic studies. Then we recruited two Han Chinese cohorts (2004 cases and 1823 controls) and divided cases into subgroups: non-syndromic right-side cleft lip, non-syndromic left-side cleft lip, non-syndromic bilateral cleft lip and non-syndromic cleft lip with palate to further evaluate the associations between the subtypes of NSCL/P and SNPs in NTN1. PLINK and Haploview program were utilized to analyze the data. RESULTS: In the association analysis under additive model, we found that G allele at rs9891446 could specifically increase the risk of right-side cleft lip (P = 0.0073, OR = 1.44, 95%CI: 1.1-1.88), which was consistent with the results of association analysis under genotypic model. CONCLUSION: This study showed that rs9891446 of NTN1 was specifically associated with right-side cleft lip in Han Chinese, which indicates that different subtypes of non-syndromic cleft lip have distinct genetic background.

Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks Node Localization Based on Compressive Sensing in Water Hydrology.

Groundwater is an important source of human activities, agriculture and industry. Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASNs) is one of the important technologies for marine environmental monitoring. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the node self- localization technology of underwater acoustic sensor network. This paper mainly studies the node localization algorithm based on range-free. In order to save cost and energy consumption, only a small number of sensing nodes in sensor networks usually know their own location. How to locate all nodes accurately through these few nodes is the focus of our research. In this paper, combined with the compressive sensing algorithm, a range-free node localization algorithm based on node hop information is proposed. Aiming at the problem that connection information collected by the algorithm is an integer, the hop is modified to further improve the localization performance. The simulation analysis shows that the improved algorithm is effective to improve the localization accuracy without additional cost and energy consumption compared with the traditional method.