Esthetic smile analysis of maxillary anterior tooth width: the golden percentage

With increasing application of cosmetic dental treatment comes the need for a greater understanding of esthetic principles. Scientific analysis of beautiful smiles has revealed repeatable, objective principles that can be systematically applied to evaluate and improve dental esthetics in predictable ways. Symmetry across the midline, anterior or central dominance, and regressive proportion are three composition elements required to create utility and esthetics in a smile. The Golden Proportion has been suggested as one possible mathematic analysis tool for assessing dominance and proportion in the frontal view of the arrangement of maxillary teeth. It has proven to be controversial in developing esthetically beautiful smiles and cumbersome for evaluating symmetry.

This article considers a bilateral analysis of apparent individual tooth width as a percentage of the total apparent width of the anterior segment and proposes the concept of the Golden Percentage as a more useful application in diagnosing and developing symmetry, dominance, and proportion for esthetically pleasing smiles.