Supernumerary teeth in patients with cleft lip and palate: the tooth germs do not separate

INTRODUCTION: Supernumerary teeth in cases of cleft lip and palate do not result from the division of normal germs before the formation of hard tissue. Deciduous and permanent teeth odontogenesis begins after the face has formed, either with or without the cleft. DISCUSSION: The most acceptable hypothesis to enable understanding of the presence of supernumerary teeth on one or both sides of the cleft palate is hyperactivity of the dental lamina in its walls. This hyperactivity, with the formation of more tooth germs, must be attributed to mediators and genes related to tooth formation, under strong influence of local epigenetic factors, whose developmental environment was affected by the presence of the cleft. CONCLUSION: The current concepts of embryology no longer support the fusion of embryonic processes for the formation of the face, but rather the leveling of the grooves between them. All human teeth have a dual embryonic origin, as they are composed of ectoderm and mesenchyme/ectomesenchyme, but this does not make it easy for them to be duplicated to form supernumerary teeth.