Relevance of vertical dimension of occlusion with anthropological measures of face and fingers. A cross-sectional study amongst Libyan population

Abstract

Restoring physiological vertical dimension of occlusion (VDO) is a critical step during complete mouth rehabilitation. An improper VDO compromises the aesthetics, phonetics and functional efficiency of a prosthesis. Universally, there are no precise and consistent methods to record VDO. Many facial and body landmarks have been proposed in the literatures correlating to the VDO, many dentists face difficulties in determining correct VDO due to the subjectivity involved in decision- making, especially when rehabilitating fully edentulous patients or patients who no longer have stable tooth contact. These methods do not require a great amount of time and experience to master. Aim: Investigate the relation between anthropological measurements of face and fingers with VDO. Material and method: A total of 117 subjects of either sex within age group (18 to 60 years) participated in this study, all participants have Class I occlusion with no history of orthodontic treatment. Exclusion criteria included: supra eruptions, physiologic or pathologic migrations, deep bite, open bite, severe attrition, and extensive extra-coronal restorations, such as crowns and bridge work. Facial and hand deformities and subjects with a history of oral and maxillofacial trauma were also excluded because the study involves facial and finger measurements. All the participants in this research were informed about the study and the nature of measurements that would be taken. Ethical statement: this work was carried out under the approval of the institutional ethical committee at University of Benghazi, Libya (approval no.0153). Conclusion: Facial measurements can be used initially to approximate the measurements of VDO and then using the other methods to test the suitability of the dimensions, initially established VDO could be correlated to the index finger and little finger measurements in Libyan females and could be correlated to measurements of inner canthus of left eye to left corner of mouth (Rima Oris) in both males and females.