title: Perception of laypersons and dental professionals and students as regards the aesthetic impact of gingival plastic surgery.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the degree of perception of laypersons, professionals, and dental students, regarding the aesthetic appearance of the smile in cases of gingival plastic surgery of the maxilla for correction of a gingival smile, by examining alterations in photographs.
  
  
  METHODS
  Alterations were made to an extraoral front-view-photograph of a gingival smile in normal occlusion, by gingival recontouring of the maxilla, simulating a gingival plastic surgery procedure to diminish gingival exposure. For this purpose, specific image-manipulation program (Adobe-Photoshop-Software-CS3) was used. Images were printed on photographic-paper, attached to questionnaire, distributed among laypersons, professionals, and dental students to evaluate degree of aesthetics (n = 150). To evaluate degree of aesthetics, an attractiveness scale was used, with 0 representing hardly attractive, 5 for attractive, and 10 for very attractive. Differences between examiners were examined by Mann-Whitney test. All the statistics were performed with a confidence level of 95 per cent.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Both dental professionals and students and laypersons were capable of identifying alterations resulting from gingival plastic surgery. In all evaluated groups, they demonstrated that large gingival extension does not always affect aesthetic appearance of the smile, and maxillary incisors not being much visualized is characterized as hardly attractive, with statistically lower scores being attributed (P < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  According to aesthetic parameters, the presence of the gingiva is important in the composition of the smile, however, only when exposed to small extent.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthodontics, Southwest Bahia State University - UESB.
authors.forename: Matheus Melo
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Pithon
authors.forename: Adrielle Mangabeira
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.forename: Matheus Souza
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Campos
authors.forename: Felipe Santos
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Couto
authors.forename: Alex Ferreira
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: dos Santos
authors.forename: Raildo da Silva
authors.initials: Rda S
authors.lastname: Coqueiro
authors.forename: Dauro Douglas
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.forename: Orlando Motohiro
authors.initials: OM
authors.lastname: Tanaka
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001938:Brazil; D003766:Dental Occlusion; D004955:Esthetics, Dental; D005260:Female; D005881:Gingiva / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008437:Maxilla; D008875:Middle Aged; D023861:Photography, Dental; D019651:Plastic Surgery Procedures / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology*; D012904:Smiling; D013335:Students, Dental / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult