Craniofacial Morphological Variations in an Adult Sample: A Radiographic Cephalometric Study

Abstract

A radiographic cephalometric comparison was conducted between a sample in Dundee, Scotland, and (1) four samples of patients who had been selected for their good occlusions, and (2) three random samples of patients. The Dundee sample generally exhibited skeletal II tendencies in reference to the samples with ideal occlusions, but were less skeletal II with respect to the random samples.

Comparative craniofacial variation in Navajo Indians and North American Caucasians

“…Since all subjects exhibited some treatable degree of malocclusion, we would expect variability in this sample to be higher than in a totally random Navajo sample that included individuals with ideal occlusion. Even when groups of subjects with one specific type of malocclusion have been compared to normal occlusion groups, the malocclusion group has been found to have a generalized increased variation in craniofacial morphology (Cangialosi, 1984;Isaacson et al, 1971;Mann, 1979).…”

“…A dietary basis for this observation, related either to decreased dental attrition (Begg, 1954;Lombardi, 1982) or to decreased functional stimulation of jaw growth (Corruccini, 19841, is more likely than a genetic admixture effect (Chung et al, 1971;Smith and Bailit, 1977a). In either case, an increase in the variability of facial skeletal dimensions is likely to accompany this increase in malocclusion (Mann, 1979).…”