RESUMO
Due to the difficulties in finding a reliable cephalometric method to determine the true intermaxillary sagital relationship, the usefulness of the Freeman (AXB) and the Beatty (AXD) cephalometric methods are studied and, furthermore, which of them best demonstrate said sagital relationship. To perform this a comparative analysis of cephalometric methods AXB and AXD with the clinical cephalometric diagnosis were carried out using a sample of 33 individuals of both genders, between the ages 18 and 26 years, without orthodontic treatment, complete dentition and not taking into consideration third molars. The frequency distributions of class I, II and III were obtained through values given by methods AXD and AXB. The cephalometric clinical diagnosis was performed by 2 experienced observers thus obtaining absolute coincidence in their observations. The validity of methods AXD and AXB were measured in concordant percentages taking the cephalometric clinical diagnosis as the basis for comparison. Therefore, the most valid one is the cephalometric method with the highest percentage in concordance with the cephalometric clinical diagnosis. It was found that the frequency distribution of classes I, II and III are similar coincident with the one given by the cephalometric clinical diagnosis. The most valid method was the AXB bearing with the cephalometric clinical diagnosis a 90.91% concordance. The AXD method gave with the cephalometric clinical diagnosis a 75.76% concordance, which in relation with AXB, is a slightly lower percentage; however, demonstrating validity.