A Clinical Study of the Nasal Morphologic Changes following LeFortI Osteotomy

The facial esthetics are much affected by nasal changes due to especially its central position in relation to facial outline and so appropriately evaluated should be the functional and esthetic aspects of the nose associated with the facial appearance. Generally, a maxillary surgical movement is known to induce the changes of nasolabial morphology secondary to the skeletal repositioning accompanied by muscular retraction. These changes can be desirable or undesirable to individuals according to the direction and amount of maxillary repositioning. We investigated the surgical changes of bony maxilla and its effects to nasal morphology through the analysis of the lateral cephalogram in the Le Fort I osteotomy. Subjects were 10 patients(male 2, female 8, mean age 22.3 years) and cephalograms were obtained 2 weeks before surgery(T1) and 6 months after surgery(T2). The surgical maxillary movement was identified through the horizontal and vertical repositioning of point A. Soft-tissue analysis of the nasal profile was performed employing two angles: nasal tip projection(NTP), columellar angle(CA). Also, alar base width(ABW) was assessed directly on the patients with a slide gauge. The results were as follows: 1. Both anterior and superior movement above 2mm of maxilla rotated up nasal tip above 1mm. Either anterior or superior movement above 2mm of maxilla made prediction of the amount & direction of NTP changes difficult. Especially, a correlation between horizontal movement of maxilla and NTP rotated-up was P<0.01. 2. Both much highly anterior and superior movement of maxilla is accompanied by more CA increase than either highly. Especially, the correlation between horizontal movement of maxilla and CA change was P<0.05. 3. Anterior and/or superior movement of maxilla was accompanied by the unpredictable ABW widening. 4. The amount of changes of NTP, CA, and ABW is not in direct proportion to amout of anterior and/or superior movement of maxilla. 5. Nasal morphologic changes following Le Fort I osteotomy are affacted by not merely bony repositioning but other multiple factors.

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