The spina classification - why use it

摘要

The task of creating a classification for cleft lips and palates has always been an inglorious challenge. An evidence of this fact is the great number of classifications that have been proposed since cleft lip and palate study began centuries ago without the complete acceptance of a specific classification by the medical community. As a matter of fact, there is no consensus among scholars worldwide on which classification method should be used to date.The lack of standardization results from the fact that there is no specific classification method that meets various criteria among different areas related to clefts. Therefore, in the area of embryology, the distinction between the primary palate and secondary palate should be respected, for instance. The first classification of major importance, proposed by Davis and Ritchie in 1922 (1), was used for many years until being abandoned, among other reasons, for not considering the embryology of clefts because the alveolus was adopted as a reference point for distinct cleft types. This classification divided clefts into prealveolar and postalveolar clefts, so that a postalveolar cleft included anatomical structures derived from different embryologic structures, e.g., the secondary palate and part of the primary palate.