India has over 72,000 cases of unrepaired cleft lip or palate, with states having less health infrastructure showing higher rates, according to researchers who suggest significant efforts to tackle the condition.
Cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P) disproportionately affect newborns in low- and middle-income countries because of substandard nutrition and a lack of prenatal care.
Infants in these countries face significant barriers to treatment and that can lead to prolonged disfigurement, social stigma, speech impairment and feeding trouble that can result in malnutrition and death, researchers said.
Safe, timely and effective surgery can result in successful outcomes, they said.
Barclay T Stewart, of the University of Washington and colleagues used data from Operation Smile programmes in 12 low- and middle-income countries to estimate the unmet need for CL/P surgery in India at the state level.
The researchers estimate 72,637 cases of unrepaired CL/P in 28 of the 29 states in India with available data.
The rate of unrepaired CL/Ps ranged from less than 3.5 per 100,000 population in Kerala and Goa to 10.9 per 100,000 population in Bihar, according to the results.
"With more than 72,000 cases of unrepaired CL/P in India, significant efforts must be made to relieve the prevalent unmet need and strengthen health care services to meet the demand of new cases so that the surgical backlog does not grow," researchers said.
The research was published in the JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery.
