Assessment of facial asymmetry in individuals having skeletal Class II malocclusion in Uttar Pradesh population: A cephalometric study

Objective: The objective was to assess facial asymmetry in individuals having skeletal Class II malocclusion in Uttar Pradesh population. Materials and Methods: A total of sixty individuals (thirty males and thirty females) between 18 and 27 years of age were selected. The pretreatment lateral cephalograms of the samples selected (n = 60) for the study were divided into two groups, Group I and Group II, after which posteroanterior cephalograms were taken for the measurement of asymmetry. All the cephalometric parameters were defined as quantitative variables. The mean and standard deviation (SD) for each measurement was calculated. The results were presented in frequencies, percentages for qualitative data, and mean +/- SD for quantitative data. Paired t-test was used to test the significance (P = 0.05 or less) in the difference between the right and left sides of the face. Chi-squared test was used to check the significance of difference in proportions. All the analyses were carried out on MS-Excel and SPSS 16.0 version (Chicago, Inc., Illinois, USA). Results: In Group II, the parameters for mandibular morphology and volumetric comparison and the mean of all parameters taken were statistically insignificant, but the mean for condylion-antegonial notch was greater for the right side, and the difference between the left and right sides was statistically significant (P = 0.019). When comparing the cephalometric parameters between the left and right sides in Group I and Group II, none of the mean values were proved to be statistically significant, but the right side parameters revealed to be greater than the left side of the measured parameters. Conclusion: All participants showed mild skeletal asymmetry on posteroanterior cephalograms, which was not statistically significant. In Group II, the relative mean of condylar asymmetry was statistically significant, which proves the presence of some amount of condylar asymmetry in this group. The other cephalometric parameters measured in our study showed that the value of the same was greater for the right side than the left side.