Comparison of the modified Huddart/Bodenham and GOSLON yardstick methods for assessing outcomes following primary surgery for unilateral cleft lip and palate.

OBJECTIVE

To test the measure of agreement between the modified Huddart/Bodenham scoring system and the GOSLON Yardstick for assessing the dental occlusions of patients with unilateral complete cleft lip and palate (UCLP) and to test the time taken for each assessment.

MATERIAL AND METHOD: 60 sets of study models of 8-10-year-old UCLP patients who attended the Department of Orthodontics at the Faculty of Dentistry, Khon Kean University were evaluated. All subjects had undergone their cleft lip and palate repairs, but no alveolar bone grafts or any orthodontic treatment were done. The judgments of two trained examiners were used to place the modified Huddart/Bodenham score for each set of models into one of 5 categories corresponding to the GOSLON ratings to test for agreement between the two methods. The strength of agreement of ratings was analyzed by weighted kappa statistics. A paired t-test was carried out to compare the time taken in assessment with each index.

RESULTS

There was good agreement between the two methods with a kappa value of 0.73. The GOSLON assessment took significantly less time than the modified Huddart/Bodenham assessment.

CONCLUSION

The modified Huddart/Bodenham scoring system can be used as an alternative to the more commonly used GOSLON Yardstick for diagnostic purposes. Although the numerical scoring system takes more time, it provides more information about the sites of occlusal discrepancy than does the GOSLON Yardstick.