Journal of Oral Hygiene & Health
Open Access

Review Article

Facial Measurements as Predictors of the Length of the Maxillary Central Incisor in a Cross Section of the Indian Population-A Clinical Study

Karunakar Shetty^1*, Mahesh Kumar¹, Keerti Palagiri¹, Susan Amanna¹ and Shreya Shetty²

¹Department of Prosthodontics, Bangalore Institute of Dental Sciences and Post graduate Research, Bangalore, India

²Department of Periodontics, Bangalore Institute of Dental Sciences and Post graduate Research, Karnataka, India

*Corresponding Author:

Karunakar Shetty
Department of Prosthodontics
Bangalore Institute of Dental Sciences and
Post graduate Research
Bangalore, Karnataka state, India
Tel: +91-9902197761
Fax: +91-80-26563973
E-mail: dr_karu@yahoo.com

Received Date: April 08, 2013; Accepted Date: June 07, 2013; Published Date: June 13, 2013

Citation: Shetty K, Kumar M, Palagiri K, Amanna S, Shetty S (2013) Facial Measurements as Predictors of the Length of the Maxillary Central Incisor in a Cross Section of the Indian Population - A Clinical Study. J Oral Hyg Health 1:106. doi: 10.4172/2332-0702.1000106

Copyright: © 2013 Shetty K, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Introduction: The maxillary central incisor in particular holds the key in creating a highly esthetic frontal profile and therefore appropriate selection of the tooth is of utmost importance in the restoration of the anterior segment of teeth in completely or partially edentulous patients. Although a number of studies have suggested various reference guides towards estimation of the width of central incisor, there have been no suitable guides to ascertain the length of the incisor in the absence of pre-extraction records.

Purpose of the study: The present study attempted to arrive at a correct proportion for determining as far as possible the correct length of the maxillary central incisor with the help of facial measurements in the absence of pre-extraction records in a small proportion of the subcontinent Indian population.

Materials and methods: The distance from the bridge of the nose to the base was compared to the length (actual and calculated by regression) of the maxillary central incisor in 400 patients of both sexes between the age groups of 20-35 years.

Results: The length of the maxillary central incisor by calculated measurement ratios of facial measurements and regression equation showed variations between 0.2 to 0.4 mm in males and females respectively which was statistically significant (p<0.01). Conclusion: The distance from the bridge of the nose to base of the nose may be used as a reference to estimate the length of the central incisor in the subcontinent Indian population, although regression equation may be more accurate.

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