Personal Message from Robert Sader

It is with great pleasure and honor that I warmly invite you to join us at the 17th World Congress of the International Cleft Lip and Palate Foundation on September 4 – 6, 2025, in Frankfurt, Germany.

Frankfurt is a bustling metropolis in the heart of Europe, known throughout the world for its exciting and unusual contrasts of modernity and tradition. Frankfurt is an international travel hub making it easily accessible from all across the globe and has been a center of trade and commerce, and communication for more than 800 years. Located in the wonderful landscape of the RhineMain area, it is here that German Emperors were crowned, the telephone was invented and the first train route in Germany originated. 5 Nobel prize winners in medicine and physiology, affiliated with the Goethe-University Frankfurt, are participating the Congress.

You can also see this innovative thinking in the field of cleft lip and palate. In the 19th century, Gustav Passavant was one of the first surgeons in Germany to specialize in cleft lip and palate surgery. In 1869 he stated first that the treatment of cleft palate cannot be based on surgery alone, but also needed functional treatment concepts.

Our meeting venue will be the education campus of the University Medicine Frankfurt/Goethe-University Frankfurt, named in honor of one of the most famous sons of our city, the German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe. The campus is located directly along the river of Main and is only a 10-minute tram ride from the inner city with many historical buildings, parks and restaurants. 

Frankfurt is an ideal place to meet friends and colleagues and to share new information and ideas on cleft lip and palate therapy, and to simply enjoy being together. Wherever and whenever people come here together, ideas are created, improved upon, and implemented.

We expect high attendance because of the unique location, excellent international access, and especially because of the great historic and clinical importance of the Frankfurt Interdisciplinary Treatment Center for Cleft Lip and Palate and Rare Orofacial Diseases, which is one of the largest in Europe. The Interdisciplinary German Cleft Palate Craniofacial Association has rescheduled its annual meeting to coincide with our congress CLEFT2025.

So, join us as an exhibitor, workshop provider or a sponsor and help us to welcome our guests from all over the world – to support the treatment of children with cleft lip and palate worldwide.

I look forward to personally welcoming you to Frankfurt in September 2025.

Yours

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dr. Dr. Robert Sader
Congress President