Midsagittal facial soft-tissue growth of French Canadian adolescents

This study examines changes in 12 midline soft-tissue thicknesses from the forehead, nose, lip, and chin regions in girls and boys from 10 to 16 years of age. The soft-tissue changes are compared to changes in two hard-tissue distances (sella-nasion and nasion-menton). The subjects are from a mixed-longitudinal sample studied at the Montreal Human Growth Research Center in the 1960s and 1970s. Total sample size is 242 (from lateral cephalographs of 124 males and 118 females). with numbers varying by age and measurement. For hard-tissues, boys show clearly defined adolescent spurts, while girls display small velocity increases indicative of only very minor spurts. Forehead tissue thicknesses for both sexes change little and show no demonstrable growth spurts. For the nose and philtrum region, which have the greatest absolute soft-tissue growth changes, both boys and girls show adolescent spurts. Peak velocities are attained between 13 and 14 years in boys and between 11.9 and 12.5 years in girls. Boys appear to have small adolescent spurts for upper (13.7 years) and perhaps lower lip thicknesses. Neither sex displays clear evidence for adolescent spurts in the chin region. (C) 2002 Wiley-Liss. Inc.