After surgical repair of cleft lip, a good outcome is generally achieved. However, in some cases, due to the young age of the patient at the time of surgery, some deformities are not yet significant and will become obvious later as the lip continues to develop and increase; the degree of deformity is so severe that it is impossible to fully and completely repair it within one surgery; postoperative wounds are complicated by infection, etc., which may leave or gradually show new shape deficiencies, called postoperative secondary deformities.
Secondary deformities after cleft lip surgery are often manifested as: too long upper lip, too tight upper lip, loose upper lip, red lip notch deformity, uneven upper edge of red lip, lip arch not showing, scar growth, significant pin marks, nostril too big or too small, nostril bottom split, nasal tip too low, crooked nose, teeth and alveolar protrusion deformity, etc., which can be corrected and repaired according to the patient’s specific condition.
There are many reasons why the appearance of cleft lip is still unsatisfactory after surgery. First, the complexity of cleft lip and palate deformity, the current surgical methods are difficult to achieve a one-time satisfactory correction of the existing lip and nose deformity; second, the imbalance of growth and development may also aggravate the existing deformity; third, the limitations of early surgery. Generally need to carry out the second phase of plastic surgery repair, the specific time can be determined according to the deformity.