Soft tissue analysis of chin, upper lip length and thickness in patients with different mandibular divergent patterns - A cephalometric study

Aim: To compare soft tissue chin, upper lip thickness and length in patients with different mandibular divergent patterns. Materials and Methods: Pre-treatment lateral cephalograms of 180 patients was taken. Based on the mandibular plane angle (GoGn-SN), all the subjects were divided into three groups, Group 1 - hyper-divergent (30 males, 30 females), Group 2 - hypo-divergent (30 males, 30 females), Group 3- normo-divergent (30 males, 30 females). Soft tissue chin, upper lip thickness and length were measured on the cephalograms. The measurements were recorded by the same operator and analysed statistically. Results: Soft tissue chin thickness (Pog-Pog'), (Gn-Gn') and (Me-Me') was found to be statistically significant only between hyperdivergent & hypodivergent groups (p=0.008), (p Conclusion: Soft tissue chin thickness was greatest in the hypodivergent group as compared to the other groups. Greater values for lip thickness were observed for hypodivergent patients. No difference in lip length was seen for all the groups. Keywords: Soft tissue analysis, Cephalometrics, Mandibular divergence.