Live-born infants with cleft lip and/or cleft palate: contribution of speech pathology sciences to Sinasc

Abstracts

OBJETIVO:

caracterizar os casos de fissura de lábio e/ou palato atendidos num centro de referência do estado de Pernambuco e os nascidos vivos notificados ao Sistema de Informação sobre Nascidos Vivos com essa malformação, mensurando a subnotificação dos casos de fissura nesse sistema.

MÉTODOS:

desenvolveu-se um estudo epidemiológico, cuja população foram crianças nascidas em 2009 e atendidas no centro de referência para deformidades craniofaciais em Pernambuco, e pelos nascidos vivos no mesmo ano, notificados ao Sinasc com a fissura. Realizou-se um linkage determinístico entre ambas as fontes de dados e foram considerados subnotificados os casos que constaram na lista de atendimentos do centro de referência, mas que não foram notificados no Sinasc.

RESULTADOS:

dos 138 casos com fissura encontrados no Centro de Referência, 37,70% nasceram com fissura transforame e 66,40% do sexo masculino. No Sinasc, foram notificados 78 nascidos vivos com essa malformação, sendo a maioria do sexo masculino e com distribuição homogênea em relação ao tipo da fissura. Dos 138 casos localizados no Centro de Referência, 86 não foram notificados ao Sinasc, perfazendo uma subnotificação de 110,3%.

CONCLUSÃO:

existe uma alta subnotificação da fissura de lábio e/ou palato no Sinasc. Apesar dos dados fazerem referência ao estado de Pernambuco, acredita-se que reflete uma realidade nacional.

Fenda Labial; Fissura Palatina; Sistemas de Informação; Nascimento Vivo

OBJETIVO:

caracterizar os casos de fissura de lábio e/ou palato atendidos num centro de referência do estado de Pernambuco e os nascidos vivos notificados ao Sistema de Informação sobre Nascidos Vivos com essa malformação, mensurando a subnotificação dos casos de fissura nesse sistema.

MÉTODOS:

desenvolveu-se um estudo epidemiológico, cuja população foram crianças nascidas em 2009 e atendidas no centro de referencia para deformidades craniofaciais em Pernambuco, e pelos nascidos vivos no mesmo ano, notificados ao Sinasc com a fissura. Realizou-se um linkage determinístico entre ambas as fontes de dados e foram considerados subnotificados os casos que constaram na lista de atendimentos do centro de referência, mas que não foram notificados no Sinasc.

RESULTADOS:

dos 138 casos com fissura encontrados no Centro de Referência, 37,70% nasceram com fissura transforame e 66,40% do sexo masculino. No Sinasc, foram notificados 78 nascidos vivos com essa malformação, sendo a maioria do sexo masculino e com distribuição homogênea em relação ao tipo da fissura. Dos 138 casos localizados no Centro de Referência, 86 não foram notificados ao Sinasc, perfazendo uma subnotificação de 110,3%.

CONCLUSÃO:

existe uma alta subnotificação da fissura de lábio e/ou palato no Sinasc. Apesar dos dados fazerem referência ao estado de Pernambuco, acredita-se que reflete uma realidade nacional.

Fenda Labial; Fissura Palatina; Sistemas de Informação; Nascimento Vivo

Introduction

Cleft lip and/or cleft palate are among the most common craniofacial malformations in the human species, and they occur due to lack of fusion in embryonic processes responsible for the formation of the face and the palate, still in intrauterine life¹.

Such malformation demands a treatment protocol with a complexity level that varies according to the extension of the cleft² and that has aesthetical and functional implications, interfering in the individual's communication^{3 - 8} and its social relations, including the psychological impact suffered by the individual itself and its parents and relatives^{9 - 11}.

That way, a surgical-therapeutic intervention is necessary on the first months of life, as well as follow-up assistance throughout the years². The therapeutic interventions influence the facial development and must be done in specialized centers³ so that the treatment is not performed wrongly, resulting in injuries more damaging than the malformation itself.

In Brazil, there are centers recognized as of reference in the treatment of this malformation¹². However, being a country with large geographic dimensions, populations of some regions may suffer due to lack of resources for specific treatments, demanding them to look for care in other regions. The main problem is the population's lack of information concerning causes, consequences and possible treatments for cleft lip and/or cleft palate.

Besides, it is important to have detailed information about the live-born infants with such malformation, through precise registries, in order to establish the offer of the most adequate treatment, aiming to recover an appropriate communicative and functional pattern.

According to data from the Ministry of Health (MS), the occurrence of this malformation in Brazil, in 2009, was of five cases for every 10.000 live-born infants. Such occurrence has remained stable on the period from 2000 to 2011¹³, despite the expansion of the Family Health Strategy, which distributes folic acid at no cost, the deficiency of which during pregnancy represents one of the main causes for the occurrence of cleft lip and/or cleft palate^{14 , 15}.

Brazil has a wide network of Health Information Systems (HIS), in national range, with most of its information available online¹⁶. Among them, there is the Information System on Live-born Infants (Sistema de Informações sobre Nascidos Vivos - Sinasc), implanted nationally on the 1990s, with the goal of identifying the profile of live-born babies and contributing to produce health indices specific to that population. Nowadays, the data produced by Sinasc allow diagnoses, management and vigilance of priority areas, especially because it makes possible to explore aspects related to life and health conditions and to the geographical distribution of births. From data of this system, it is possible to evaluate actions specifically aimed to mother and child healthcare, serving as source to scientific production as well as to planning and evaluating interventions based on the needs of that population¹⁷.

The main document of Sinasc, the Declaration of Live-born Infants (Declaração de Nascidos Vivos - DNV) is composed by 52 variables, among them two that refer to the existence of congenital malformations. However, it is still a challenge to develop a pattern on the registration of these two variables, resulting in inaccuracies in the data generated by Sinasc¹⁸. A study in Rio de Janeiro registered 11,7% of the DNV with ignored information about cleft lip and/or cleft palate malformation, in the period of 1999 to 2001¹⁹. In another study performed in services of reference to people born with cleft lip and/or cleft palate, it was shown that only 53,3% of the DNV presented the malformation registered; concerning the description, the cleft palate presented the highest number of mistakes, being described accurately only in 25% of the cases²⁰.

Therefore, this study aimed to characterize cases of cleft lip and/or cleft palate presented in a center of reference in the State of Pernambuco and the live-born infants registered in Sinasc with this malformation, measuring the under-notification of such cases in the system.

Methods

This work was approved by the Committee of Ethics in Research of the Institute of Integral Health Professor Fernandes Figueira (Imip) and it respects the standards for researches with human beings by the Brazilian National Council of Health (466/2012).

This work consists in an epidemiological study, exploratory and population-based, developed in Pernambuco, state located in the Northeast Region of Brazil, with a current population of 8.931.028 inhabitants¹³. The universe in this study is formed by individuals with cleft lip and/or cleft palate registered in the Center of Attention to Facial Malformations (Cadefi/Imip), born in 2009, and by the live-born infants notified in the Sinasc with either or both types of cleft. The Cadefi/Imip is a regional reference in the treatment of cleft lip and/or cleft palate and other craniofacial defects, considered the third biggest in the country, and it offers high complexity specialized services, involving the main therapeutic practices necessary to the full rehabilitation of individuals with craniofacial anomalies.

This work used as data source the Sinasc bank of the State of Pernambuco and the registration files of Cadefi/Imip, which is filled in every first consultation and is available as part of the documentation, on the hospital records. Based on the Sinasc data bank, it were used for the analysis the live-born infants, from 2009, whose DNV had a cleft lip and/or cleft palate notification, codified in Q35 to Q37 of the CID-10.

The variables live-born infant gender and type of cleft were collected from the Sinasc data bank. From the Cadefi/Imip, it was observed: gender; type; extension and laterality of the cleft; use of folic acid during pregnancy; prenatal visits; diagnosis of the cleft during prenatal; and family history of the cleft.

A deterministic linkage was performed relating the two sources, taking the mother's name as principal variable of search and, as variables of confirmation of the real pair, the child's date of birth, the mother's date of birth and the child's gender, respectively. The under-noticed cases were the ones present on the lists of Cadefi/Imip which were not notified on Sinasc as presenting the congenital malformation.

The data were processed and analyzed through the software EpiInfo for Windows, version 3.5.4, and the Bioestat, version 5.0. Absolute and relative frequencies were applied, using Yates' Chi-squared test to evaluate the difference between proportions, adopting α = 5%. The incidence of live-born infants with cleft lip and/or cleft palate was measured from cases notified to the Sinasc; the corrected incidence was calculated by adding the under-notified cases to the numerator.

Results

138 children born in 2009 registered in the Cadefi/Imip with cleft lip and/or cleft palate were found. Of these, 66,4% were males; 37,7% were born with transforamen cleft, 57,3% had full damage and 38,2% had partial damage of the lip and/or palate structures isolated. When related to the laterality, 42,6% were on the left side, and 38,3%, bilateral (Table 1).

Table 1:
Distribution of live-born infants with cleft lip and/or cleft palate, born in 2009, registered in the Center of Attention to Facial Malformations (Cadefi/Imip)

• * Statistically significant

The ingestion of folic acid by mothers during pregnancy was notified in 49,3% of the cases, and 97% had access to prenatal visits. Of those who performed the prenatal procedures, 6,9% received the diagnosis of the congenital malformation during pregnancy. When related to family history, 71,2% of the cases had no other occurrences in the family (Table 1).

Of all the variable analyzed on the Cadefi/Imip, only the type of cleft had no statistical relevance (x² = 0,844; p = 0,656). The variables extension of cleft and laterality of cleft, although statistically significant, presented high rates of ignorability, respectively 20,3% and 31,9%.

On Sinasc, 78 live-born infants were registered, residing in the state of Pernambuco, born in 2009, with some kind of cleft lip and/or cleft palate. Of these, 65,40% (51) are males. There was homogeneous distribution concerning the type of cleft. Each of the three categories (cleft lip; cleft palate; cleft lip and cleft palate) summed 33,33% (Tabela 2).

Table 2:
Distribution of live-born infants in 2009 with cleft lip and/or cleft palate notified to the Information System on Live-born Infants (Sinasc)

• * Statistically significant

Of the 138 cases registered in Cadefi/Imip, 86 were not notified to Sinasc, resulting in a under-notification of 110,3% in this system. In other words, for that year, the incidence of live-born infants with the malformation is of 11,55 for every 10.000, and not 5,50 for every 10.000, as measured by direct data provided by Sinasc.

Discussion

The results of the present study reassure the epidemiological characterization of cleft lip and/or cleft palate found in other parts of the world.

A study undertaken with 541.540 live-born infants in China also found a higher occurrence of the cleft in male children, at the rate of 1,4:1²¹; in another similar study, the rate was of 2,02:1, in a population of 360.990 inhabitants. The higher occurrence in males was also found in Brazil^{22 , 23} and in other parts of the world^{24 , 25}.

Related to the type of cleft, the findings in this study confirm the predominance of the transforamen cleft, as observed by other researchers^{2 , 15 , 21 , 22}. In the Coope et al. study (2000) ²¹ for instance, the occurrence of cleft lip and palate (65%) was approximately twice as high as cleft lip only (35%). Marques (2000) ²⁶ stated that transforamen cleft was 2,20 times more frequent than pre-foramen type, and 1,96 times more frequent than post-foramen kind.

The preponderance of left laterality corroborates the results from other studies^{2 , 4}, as well as the lack of diagnosis of the cleft during prenatal attendance^{9 , 11}.

Concerning the omission of registry in records about the extension and laterality of the cleft in some cases, it is relevant to warn the hospital staff about the importance of the registration routine of such data.

It is also important to highlight that the use of folic acid during pregnancy only happened in half of the cases. The low usage of this vitamin, despite its free distribution, is something to be considered, being the lack of both information and family planning some possible causes for such practice.

Comparing the results of registries by Cadefi/Imip and Sinasc, it was verified that the latter presented high under-notification of cleft lip and/or cleft palate among live-born infants, showing that the amount of cases closer to reality would be of 169, born in 2009 in the state of Pernambuco. Therefore, for that year, the incidence of live-born infants with the malformation was of 11,55 for every 10.000, and not 5,50 for every 10.000, as measured by direct data provided by Sinasc.

Concerning the corrected incidence of cleft lip and/or cleft palate in Pernambuco, it was observed that the levels are similar to the ones found in South America (1:1.000) ²⁷. Generally, there is high variability in the cleft incidence in different regions of the world (from 1/1.000 to 1,81/1.000). The highest rate was found in Czechoslovakia (1,81/1.000), followed by France (1,75/1.000), Finland (1,74/1.000), Denmark (1,69/1.000), Belgium and Netherlands (1,47/1.000), Italy (1,33/1.000), California (1,12/1.000) and South America (1/1.000).

In general terms, it is stated that the Sinasc is a potential source for the study of live-born infants with some kind of congenital malformation and that it keeps important information for the analysis of the occurrence of the cleft nationwide.

Some studies point to advances in the coverage and quality of information from the system in Pernambuco and Brazil^{28 , 29}. Nonetheless, the data brought by Sinasc are only the tip of the iceberg, exposing the challenge of improving the attainment of malformations data in a more precise and realistic way.

Conclusion

The present study brought as contributions the acknowledgment of the characteristics of children born with cleft lip and/or cleft palate, as well as the under-notified cases in the health system, providing the possibility of updating the information generated by Sinasc.

Although the data presented is restricted to the state of Pernambuco, it is believed that it reflects a national scenario. Therefore, it is essential to produce more studies in order to expand this discussion and stimulate strategies to improve the attainment of cleft lip and/or cleft palate information by Sinasc.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Mar-Apr 2015

History

• Received
  18 Mar 2014
• Accepted
  29 July 2014