Assessment of dental appearance following changes in incisor angulation.
OBJECTIVE
This study evaluated the assessment of attractiveness of standardized changes in incisor angulation of different tooth arrangements.


METHODS
Four sets of images showing the maxillary anterior teeth without lips against a black background were used for evaluation. Each set contained the original photograph, one computer-manipulated symmetric image, and four images with different standardized changes in incisor angulation (10 degrees). The judges, consisting of three groups (30 dental students, 30 medical students, 30 art students), ranked each photo set for attractiveness from 1 (most attractive) to 6 (most unattractive).


RESULTS
The mean ranking (in parentheses) showed that symmetric teeth with ideal axes (2.5) and changes in the angulation of one (2.8) or both (2.5) lateral incisors were significantly more attractive than the angulation of one (4.2) or both (4.6) central incisors. There were no differences between the groups of participants. All findings were reproducible.


CONCLUSIONS
Tooth arrangements showing central incisors with ideal axes were more attractive. Slight changes in the angulation of one or both lateral incisors did not influence attractiveness negatively.
Wolfart
Stefan
S
Department of Prosthodontics, Propaedeutics and Dental Materials, School of Dentistry, University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Kiel, Germany. swolfart@proth.uni-kiel.de
Brunzel
Simone
S
Freitag
Sandra
S
Kern
Matthias
M
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004955:Esthetics, Dental; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007180:Incisor / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D008297:Male; D008437:Maxilla; D015588:Observer Variation; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014087:Tooth Movement Techniques