Cleft Lip/Palate and Cancer: a True Connection

Abstract

Multifactorial cleft lip and palate is relatively common in populations (1 in every 700 livebirths). Individuals born with clefts require lifelong treatment after initial surgical repair and data suggested that their lifespan is shorter, possibly due to cancer or psychiatric conditions. Molecular defects that alter facial development in utero appear to later in life predispose to cancer. Common polymorphisms in e-cadherin and an endoplasmic reticulum transmembrane sensor gene appear to hold the promise to be biomarkers that may help to define individual risks to cancer, in the presence or not of family history of clefts.