Thickness of Facial Soft Tissue in Adult Patients with Class I, II and III Skeletal Patterns in Digital lateral Cephalometery

Introduction: Understanding the variations in the thickness of facial soft tissue is important in forensic medicine, dentistry, and plastic surgery. This study aimed to evaluate the thickness of the facial soft tissue in adolescents with different maxillary skeletal patterns and compare them between both sexes, by using digital lateral cephalometric radiographs. Methods: 97 patients over 18 years of age referring to a private radiology center for digital lateral cephalometric radiographs participated in this study. Standard digital lateral cephalometric radiographs of patients were categorized based on the ANB angle to three Skeletal jaw classes ( I, II, and III). Then, in each of the lateral cephalometric radiographs, the Soft tissue landmarks including glabella, nasion, subnasale, labrale superius, stomion, labrale inferius, labiomental, pogonion, menton, and the vertical distance of each landmark to the bone surface were determined. Soft tissue thickness landmarks at each site were measured separately in males and females and in three different skeletal class groups. Statistical analysis of multivariate multiplicative variance was used to compare the data. Results: The results of the study showed that soft tissue thickness in Glabella and Labiomental points were not significantly different between men and women (P-value >0.05). Other landmarks in men were significantly higher than women(P-value<0.05). As for the relationship between soft tissue thickness and skeletal classes, subnasale, labrale superius, stomion, labrale inferius had significant association with skeletal classification (P-value<0.05). Conclusion: These findings point to the importance of sex and cranial morphology in soft facial tissues for accurate facial reconstruction