Journal Article

Incidence of non-syndromic orofacial cleft during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia

Alhussain, Reema Mahdi, Alrejaye, Najla Sulaiman, Sallout, Bahauddin Ibraheem, Sabbagh, Heba Jafar, Alnamnakani, Eman Abdulbaset, Abdulhameed, Fatma Dawood, Alghamdi, Bushra Musaad, Alamoudi, Rana Abdullah, Basri, Osama Adel, Alsharif, Mona Tala, Aljohar, Aziza Johar, Alghamdi, Sultan Musaad, Alshaikh, Ali Bakr, Albaqawi, Badi Shoaib, Alraddadi, Asalah Khalid, Aburiziza, Abdullah Jameel, Almalik, Manal Ibrahim, Alqhtani, Faisal Ali, Al Soqih, Norah Suliman, Brekeit, Lougin Khalid, AlGudaibi, Latifa Yousef

2023

Overview

Objectives This is the first national study to investigate the incidence of non-syndromic oro-facial clefts (NSOFC) and Pierre-Robin-Sequence in Saudi Arabia over the Covid-19 pandemic period. Methods All maternity hospitals (30-hospitals) in the major regions and cities of Saudi from November 2020-to-2021 were included in the study. Patients were evaluated for cleft phenotype using the LASHAL-classification system. The incidence of NSOFC in Saudi Arabia was calculated by comparing the number of NSOFCs cases born out of all live births during the study period at the included hospitals. Clinical examination was performed and information was gathered using a validated data collection form. Results In one year, 140,380 live-infants were born at the selected hospitals. Of these, 177 were diagnosed with NSOFC giving an incidence of 1.26/1,000 live-births in Saudi Arabia and the highest incidence in Medina city (2.46/1000 live-births). The incidence of cleft lip-and-palate (0.67/1000 live-births) was higher than that of cleft-palate (0.37/1000 live-births) and cleft-lip (0.22/1000 live-births). Pierre-Robin Sequence incidence was (0.04/1000 live-births). There were 21(12.1) or 23(13.2%) of NSOFC’s mothers exposed or vaccinated with Covid-19, respectively. Conclusion The national incidence of NSOFC in Saudi Arabia was 1.26/1000 live births with variation between phenotypes and regions in the country. In addition, to reporting Covid-19 infection prevalence and vaccine exposure among NSOFC's mothers, this study represents the first of its type to evaluate NSOFC prevalence in Saudi Arabia on a national level.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Analysis / Babies / Biostatistics / Birth defects / Births / Care and treatment / Cities / Cleft Lip - epidemiology / Cleft lip and Cleft palate / Cleft lip/palate / Cleft Palate - epidemiology / Collaboration / Consent / Control / COVID-19 / COVID-19 - epidemiology / COVID-19 vaccines / Data collection / Diagnosis / Disease transmission / Environmental Health / Epidemics / Epidemiology / Evaluation / Families & family life / Female / Hospitals / Humans / Incidence / Infections / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Mothers / Mouth diseases / Pandemics / Parents & parenting / Pediatrics / Phenotype / Phenotypes / Phenotypic variations / Pregnancy / Prevalence / Public Health / Saudi Arabia / Saudi Arabia - epidemiology / Urban areas / Vaccine