Influence of maxillary incisor level of exposure on the perception of dentofacial aesthetics among orthodontists and laypersons

Objective: Determine the perception of dentofacial esthetics among orthodontists and laypersons with respect to the level of maxillary incisors exposure in full-face and close-up views at repose. Methods: Full-face and close-up photographs at repose in the frontal view of one adult white woman and one man were used. The images were digitally altered to produce from the original photo, six images with different levels of maxillary central incisors exposure in 0.5 mm increments. Final images were randomly assembled into a photo album that was given to 108 judges, 54 orthodontists and 54 laypersons. Each rater was asked to evaluate the attractiveness of the images with visual analog scales. The data collected were statistically analyzed with 1-way analysis of variance with the Tukey post-hoc test and the unpaired Student t test. Results: In general, according to the orthodontists and laypersons the highest scores were assigned to the images with 2.5 and 2.0 mm for the woman and 2.5, 2.0 and 1.5 mm for the man of incisors exposure while the lowest scores were assigned to the images with no incisors exposure (p<.05). When opinions of orthodontists and laypersons were compared, no statistically significant difference was found (p>.05). Moreover, there was no significant difference (p>.0.5) between the full-face and close-up assessments. Conclusion: The amount of maxillary incisors exposure at repose significantly affected the perception of dentofacial esthetics where minimal teeth exposure was highly unattractive. (C) 2015 World Federation of Orthodontists.