Using Standard Digital Extra-Oral Photography in Patient With Cleft Lip and Palate

Abstract

A standardized photographic documentation is reproducible, which facilitates the evaluation of new techniques, treatment planning, and comparison of results. Clinical photography is important to impart scientific education to health professionals, because techniques can be better understood by the listener or reader when they are well illustrated. Documentation of consistent imaging of clinical diagnosis and treatment is also essential in medical-legal cases. High-quality clinical photographs along with radiographs and other medical and dental images should become an integral part of patients' medical records. Variables such as lens selection, camera position, distance, and patient's position should be understood and controlled by healthcare personnel for acquiring accurate photographs. In the case of patients with craniofacial deformities, such as cleft lip and palate, it is important to establish the standardization of photographic records because the patients' aesthetic evaluation is a fundamental clinical indicator in the deformity analysis, besides assisting the planning of patients' multidisciplinary treatment. This article aims to assist health professionals in acquiring standardized facial photographs (front, right profile, left profile, and submental oblique view) of patients with cleft lip and palate.