Reconstruction of Upper Lip with Lower Lip Abbe Flap

The patient is a 12-year-old girl from Guwahati in Assam, India. She was born with a cleft lip and palate along with a cleft alveolus. Cleft lip surgery had been performed at 3 months of age. This was followed by cleft palate surgery at 9 months of age and cleft alveolus surgery at 4 years of age. As the patient grew up, her nose began to get progressively deformed and flat. There was also a hypertrophic scar from the cleft lip repair. This detracted from the appearance of her face and she felt self-conscious because of this. Her nasal tip was also flattened. She said that the left side of the face appeared different from the right side of the face. Cleft lip deformities are considered to be facial deformities and not craniofacial deformities. Facial palsy is never present in cleft lip and palate patients. Bell’s palsy is a variant of facial palsy. Read more at For Questions & queries : smbalaji@ Website: Blog: