title: Diagnostic concordance between skeletal cephalometrics, radiograph-based soft-tissue cephalometrics, and photograph-based soft-tissue cephalometrics.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study aims to investigate the diagnostic concordance between skeletal cephalometrics and soft-tissue cephalometrics in identifying facial lower third characteristics.
  
  
  METHODS
  We compared a skeletal cephalometric analysis (SCA) to a soft-tissue analysis performed on cephalometric radiographs (rSTCA) and to one performed on profile photograph (pSTCA). Ninety-six pre-treatment digital lateral cephalometric radiographs and 96 digital profile photographs were randomly selected for this study (patients' mean age: 18.33, SD: 3.38, age range: 14-29). Inclusion criteria were as follows: no skeletal asymmetry, well-aligned upper and lower dental arches, no history of orthodontic treatment, prosthodontic treatment, facial surgery and trauma, patient's age between 14 and 30 years, high-resolution images, exams taken with natural head position. Kruskas-Wallis and post hoc pairwise comparisons tests were used to find differences among the considered cephalometric methods. The diagnostic performance of the three methods was also assessed using the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Significant differences were found between SCA and rSTCA and between SCA and pSTCA in defining sagittal and vertical facial lower third characteristics (P < 0.05). No differences were found between rSTCA and pSTCA (P > 0.05) for the same facial characteristics. For each parameters investigated, pSTCA showed an area under the curve much closer to the perfect value of 1.00.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Poor diagnostic concordance was found between SCA and rSTCA and between SCA and pSTCA. pSTCA is a reliable method for evaluating the soft-tissue profile characteristics compared to that performed on cephalograms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical and Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging-Section of Orthodontics, School of Dentistry, University of Messina.
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nucera
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical and Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging-Section of Orthodontics, School of Dentistry, University of Messina.
authors.forename: Antonino
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lo Giudice
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical and Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging-Section of Orthodontics, School of Dentistry, University of Messina.
authors.forename: Mirea
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bellocchio
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical and Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging-Section of Orthodontics, School of Dentistry, University of Messina.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Spinuzza
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgical and Morphological Sciences-Section of Orthodontics, School of Medicine, University of Insubria, Varese, Italy.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Caprioglio
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical and Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging-Section of Orthodontics, School of Dentistry, University of Messina.
authors.forename: Giancarlo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cordasco
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002508:Cephalometry / Q000379:methods*; D003238:Connective Tissue / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D003724:Dental Arch / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D005145:Face / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D005147:Facial Bones / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008334:Mandible / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D008437:Maxilla / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D010781:Photography; D055815:Young Adult