Correlation between facial form and buccal corridors and its influence on smile esthetics

The present study was conducted to determine whether buccal corridor width with the total smile width changes along with change in the facial form and also to substantiate the influence of buccal corridors on the smile esthetics when judged by lay persons. The sample comprised of photographs obtained from 60 patients (30 males and 30 females) with age range of 17-30 years. Out of the 60 subjects selected: 20 subjects had leptoposopic facial form, 20 subjects had mesoprosopic facial form and rest 20 subjects had euryprosopic facial form. Measurements of the frontal facial photographs, to determine the facial form accurately, were done following the method of Johnson and Smith using adobe photoshop cs6 version13.0. Standardized frontal facial photographs (to evaluate the facial form) and standardized frontal smile photographs (to determine the smile width and buccal corridor width) of the individuals selected were obtained. An album assembled with the 60 printed smile photographs, were given to 15 lay people for esthetic evaluation, using visual analog scale. All the results were statistically evaluated with the P value set at 0.05. The difference between the means were evaluated by Analysis of Variance (Tukey) Test. From the study it was concluded that in a normal population, the percentage of buccal corridor width with the total smile width does not change considerably with change in facial form and is not a significant factor affecting smile esthetics.