Cleft craniofacial care in Asia—a narrative review

Background and Objective: A 2002 World Health Organization (WHO) report was published arising from the two-part meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland [2000] and Park City, Utah, USA [2001] on global strategies to reduce the health-care burden of craniofacial anomalies as part of WHO's Human Genetics Programme. How are those strategies working out in cleft and craniofacial care in Asia two decades on? This narrative review aims to give an update on cleft and craniofacial care in Asia in the past two decades. Methods: Articles are searched from PubMed using MeSH terms "Cleft Lip and Palate Treatment", "Asia", "South East Asia", "East Asia" and from the public domains for Chinese articles using key phrase "中国唇腭裂". More relevant articles are further found from the list of references in the studies. Key Content and Findings: Cleft care in Asia has progressed in the last two decades through the action of non-profit, non-governmental cleft organisations comprising of healthcare professionals, health administrators, philanthropists, volunteers as well as cooperation from local governments to provide surgical and health access to underserved populations. The mission model has gradually evolved into a more sophisticated foundation-based model with the aim to set up sustainable comprehensive cleft centres (CCCs) for the local population. More efforts need to be channelled to the west and central Asian countries as cleft protocols get more established in the south, south-east and east Asia. Conclusions: The environment is set up for closer regional collaboration through a multicentre Asiacleft study in the near future. However, there is a need for more standardisation of data collection methods and cleft management protocols.