Adolescent and adult profile comparisons emphasizing upper third of face

Objectives: Lateral cephalograms were used to determine soft tissue landmarks with low variance for Caucasian adolescents and adults with Class I occlusions. Methods: The four groups studied were 29 adolescent males, 44 adolescent females, 35 adult males, and 22 adult females. Two reference planes were used nasion perpendicular (NP) and subnasale perpendicular (SnP) in evaluating soft and hard tissue glabella, nasion, A-point, B-point, pogonion as well as nasal tip. Statistical significance was determined (p<0.05) by student t-test, and Student-Newman-Keuls test was also used. Results: Soft tissue glabella as measured from NP was uniform for all four groups (6.4mm±1), but hard tissue glabella to NP was largest in adult males (4.6mm±1.5) (p<0.004) with a subsequent larger total thickness (10.9mm±1.6). Soft tissue nasion was also consistent for all four groups at 8.1mm±1.3. Overall depth to the nasal tip was largest in adult males while the others were nearly equal. Adolescent males had the thickest soft tissue depth at A-point with 17.0mm±1.6, but this was smaller in the adult males at 15.8mm±2.2 and even smaller for adult females at 13.6mm±1.9 (p<0.001). Both groups of males demonstrated greater thickness at B-point than females (p<0.0005) at 13.3mm±1.9 vs. 12.0mm±1.2. Soft tissue pogonion increased the most from adolescent to adult in males 12.1mm±2.7 to 13.6mm±1.6 (p<0.0269). Soft tissue glabella as measured from subnasale perpendicular (SnP) was consistent for the four groups at 7.9mm±3.9 (p<0.9521). Error of measurement in re-tracing 32 cephalograms was not significant. Conclusion: Soft tissue thicknesses at glabella and nasion as measured from nasion perpendicular were consistent for all four groups along with a uniform distance from glabella to subnasale perpendicular at 7.9mm. Adult male hard tissue glabella and nasal tip were larger than the other three groups.