A national web-based portal on cleft education and researchers platform was launched at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The Indicleft tool is the first-of-its-kind portal that provides facility to researchers’ data and findings to upload cleft anomaly from any site.
“The tool includes all aspects of the cleft anomaly from the time of conception, birth and till adulthood. The tool was developed under the aegis of a task force multi-speciality project funded by the ICMR in collaboration with the Centre for Dental Education and Research, AIIMS, New Delhi. The project is the brainchild of Professor O.P. Kharbanda and was conceived in 2007. The pre-pilot phase started in 2010,” noted an ICMR release.
The project is on multicentre mode. The overall goal of the project is to establish strategies for prevention and treatment of this deformity. As a part of the study, a comprehensive “IndiCleft tool” has been developed in collaboration with National Informatics Centre (NIC), which has been employed across different participating centres in the country.
The Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for recording extra and intra oral photographs, radiographs, dental study model and investigations on hearing and speech defect have been developed in the IndiCleft tool.
Speaking on the occasion, Prof. Balram Bhargava, Director General, ICMR said: “There are obvious advantages of the tool like GIS data recording where the data from all over the country can be co-related with the demographic details of the area for the determination of risk factors, features of patient follow-up, real time data analysis. Overemphasis of the quality of the data collection under a promising project like IndiCleft was also highlighted.”
