RESUMO
One of the difficult aspects of designing complete denture prosthesis is the selection of appropriately sized maxillary anterior teeth. The aim of this investigation was to determine if there is any relationship between the intercanthal dimension and mesiodistal width of combined four maxillary anterior teeth. The maxillary anterior teeth were examined in 300 adult subjects. The distance between the median palpebral fissures was measured as the intercanthal distance. The mean width of the two central incisors, the combined widths of the central incisors, the combined width of the four incisors and the combined width of six anterior teeth were determined intra-orally at the widest dimension. T-test and Pearson correlation were used for statistical analysis. The men width of 4 maxillary incisor teeth was 30.8 +/- 1.91 mm and the mean width of 6 anterior maxillary teeth was 46.47 +/- 2.54 mm. Although the Pearson correlation was relatively small, a significant relationship was detected between the intercanthal and four maxillary teeth dimensions in all subjects [P=0.0001]. It was found that biometric ratio of 0.266 and 1.447 could be used to estimate the central incisor width and the combined widths of the six anterior teeth, respectively. The intercanthal distance can be used as preliminary criteria to determine the width of maxillary anterior teeth for edentulous patients