Cephalometric comparisons of dentofacial parameters between Egyptian and North American adolescents

The purpose of this study was to develop cephalometric standards for the Egyptian adolescent boys and girls and to compare them to a matched Iowa adolescent sample. The Egyptian sample consisted of 39 boys and 51 girls with a mean age of 12.5 years. The Iowa sample consisted of 33 boys and 22 girls with a mean age of 13.0 years. Basic descriptive statistics were calculated for 35 cephalometric dentofacial parameters. The general linear models procedure, analysis of variance, was used for the comparisons between the groups. F values were calculated for the overall group comparisons, and the statistical significance was predetermined at the 0.05 level of confidence. Comparisons between the boys and girls in both populations indicated that the boys were larger in the linear dimensions of the cranial base and face heights than the girls. Comparisons between the Egyptians and the Iowans indicated that Egyptian boys have a tendency toward bimaxillary dental protrusion and a decreased overbite as compared with Iowa boys. Egyptian girls have a relatively more convex profile and a tendency toward mandibular dental protrusion. When the overall findings are evaluated, it could be concluded that, in general, there is a great similarity in the overall facial morphology between the Egyptian and Iowa populations.