Comparison of different craniofacial patterns with pharyngeal widths.

OBJECTIVE To compare different craniofacial patterns with pharyngeal widths. STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional analytical study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY Orthodontic Clinic at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, from June 2002 to June 2010. METHODOLOGY Data were collected using pre-treatment records including orthodontic files and pre-treatment lateral cephalographs of 360 orthodontic patients. The inclusion criteria were subjects of Pakistani origin, aged between 14-20 years and having no pharyngeal pathology or complaints of nasal obstruction at the initial visit. The sample comprised a total of 360 subjects divided into 2 groups: skeletal Class I (n=180) and skeletal Class II (n=180) subdivided according to the vertical pattern into normodivergent, hyperdivergent and hypodivergent facial patterns. Upper and lower pharyngeal airways were measured using McNamara's airway analysis. The intergroup comparison of upper and lower airways was performed with oneway ANOVA and the Tukey test as the second step. RESULTS There were 172 males and 188 females with average ages of 15.3±1.3 and 15.4±0.8 years respectively. Hyperdivergent facial pattern subjects belonging either to skeletal Class I or Class II malocclusion showed a statistically significant narrow upper pharyngeal airway width as compared to normodivergent and hypodivergent facial patterns. However, no statistically significant difference was found in lower pharyngeal airway widths in sagittal and various vertical facial patterns. CONCLUSION Sagittal malocclusion type does not influence upper pharyngeal width. However, hyperdivergent subjects have statistically significant narrower upper pharyngeal width when compared to other two vertical patterns.