Background: Cleft lip and palate is one of the most common congenital malformations that affect patients, quality of life in the long term and require multidisciplinary medical care until adulthood. There are several surgical techniques used to correct a unilateral cleft lip and all of these techniques aim to restore functional and aesthetic aspects toensure the continuation of the normal growth and development of the craniofacial structures. Numerous studies have reported these surgical outcomesaccording to aesthetic criteria. However, there exists alack of knowledge about, is this surgical technique achieved functional aspects. Accordingly, this review aims to answer this question.
Materials and Methods: The study included needle electromyography test for both the Orbicular Muscle of Mouth,Elevator muscle of Upper Lip and Wing of Nose in 10 complete unilateral cleft lip patients aged 2,5-4 years who underwent a primarysurgical repair of the lip at the age of three months with Tennison technique in the department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Tishreen hospital, Lattakia, Syria. Results: The result showed no significant statistical difference in muscle activity values fort heOrbicular Muscle of Mouth and Elevator muscle of Upper Lip and Wing of Nose in both cleft and noncleft side (P>0.05). Conclusion: Using of Tennison technique restores the closest anatomical positioning to muscle fibers of studied muscles.