RESEARCH ARTICLE


Modifications of Midfacial Soft-Tissue Thickness Among Different Skeletal Classes in Italian Children



Daniele Gibelli1, *, Matteo Zago1, 2, Annalisa Cappella1, Claudia Dolci1, Chiarella Sforza1
1 Laboratorio di Anatomia Funzionale dell’Apparato Stomatognatico, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, V. Mangiagalli, 31, Milan, Italy
2 Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering (DEIB), Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2018
Volume: 10
First Page: 1
Last Page: 8
Publisher Id: TOMIJ-10-1
DOI: 10.2174/1874347101810010001

Article History:

Received Date: 1/4/2018
Revision Received Date: 17/9/2018
Acceptance Date: 24/9/2018
Electronic publication date: 17/10/2018
Collection year: 2018

© 2018 Gibelli et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, V. Mangiagalli, 31, Milan, Italy; Tel: +39-02-50315399; E-mail: daniele.gibelli@unimi.it


Abstract

Background:

The anatomical assessment of the arrangement of facial soft tissues has important applications in different fields from orthodontics to plastic surgery. One of the issues concerns the relationship between facial soft tissue thickness and skeletal class. Literature mainly deals with adult populations, whereas very few studies have been focused on children.

Objective:

This study aims at investigating the relationship between midline facial soft tissue thickness and skeletal classes in Italian pre-treatment orthodontic child patients.

Methods:

Lateral cephalometric X-ray films were obtained from 220 healthy Caucasoid children (91 males and 129 females), aged between 6 and 18 years (Class I: 41 males and 70 females; Class II: 18 males and 25 females; Class III: 32 males and 34 females). All the films were digitized and 14 soft tissue thicknesses were measured on the midface; in addition, the skeletal class was assessed according to the corrected ANB angle (ANBc). Differences in facial soft tissue thickness according to sex and skeletal class were assessed through two-way ANOVA test (p<0.01).

Results:

Statistically significant differences according to sex were found for labrale superius, stomion and labrale inferius, with thicker soft tissues in males than in females (p<0.01). Only measurements at labrale superius and gnathion showed statistically significant differences according to skeletal class, with thicker soft tissues in Class III children and thinner ones in Class II children (p<0.01).

Conclusion:

The limited number of investigations, as well as the differences in protocols, renders the comparison of results from different studies difficult, suggesting further investigations to enlighten this complex and debated anatomical issue.

Keywords: Anatomy, Face, Maxillofacial surgery, Soft-tissue thickness, Skeletal class, Cephalometric X-rays.