AIM: Considering that modern orthognathic surgery is mainly concerned in planning and diagnosing clinical cases by the use of patients' soft tissue measurements obtained from digital images used in planning software, the aim of this study is to establish Caucasian Brazilians measures and to compare them to the standard North American measures. METHODS: For this, a total of 31 Angle's Class I patients not previously submitted to orthodontic treatment and presenting harmonious facial features were invited to participate in the study as volunteers. The patients were initially photographed in frontal and lateral views and, afterwards, cephalograms were obtained. The images were digitized, adjusted and indexed in Dolphin's image software. In order to precede cephalometric analysis, a total of 16 soft tissue profile points and 22 hard tissue profile points were demarcated, accordingly to American original measurements used in Dolphin's digital image program. After, all cephalograms were again evaluated to determine intra-examiner error according to paired Student's t test. Mean and standard error measures were obtained and compared to American measures by unpaired Student's t test with 95% of confidence level. RESULTS: The results obtained have shown that all measurements, except for 4 points in male and 4 points in female, are significantly different between Brazilian and American samples. Data show that Brazilians' soft tissue profile is almost completely different from American's, with a less protrusive face, shorter chin projection and a more convex profile. CONCLUSION: This suggests the necessity of performing some changes in numerical values to obtain an ideal diagnosis and planning of orthognathic surgery in Brazilians.
Soft tissue cephalometric; Orthognatic surgery
