Radiological evaluation of facial types in mouth breathing children: a retrospective study

Mouth breathing is a condition often associated with a long face, half-open mouth and increased anterior facial height. We performed conventional lateral and frontal cephalograms of eighty-nine children with nasal and mouth breathing and independently measured Total Facial Height using the analysis technique of Ricketts, and the Morphologic Facial Index employing the technique of Avila. It was concluded that dolicofacial following mesofacial were the most frequent patterns found in mouth-breathing children and this suggests that both analyses can be used independently.