Photoanthropometry of the Face in the Young White Brazilian Population

The aim of the present study is to describe the simplified facial pattern of young Brazilian men and women using the facial index (FI), upper face index (UFI), and nasal index (NI) in indirect anthropometric measurements applied to frontal photographic images. The images were obtained from 660 adult white men and 689 adult white women aged 30 years ± 6 months, and classified according to regions of birth, as follows: south (S), southeast (SE), midwest (MW), northeast (NE), and north (N). The nasion, zygion, gnathion, stomion, subnasale, and alare landmarks were labeled on the images using the SAFF 2D® software. Based on the coordinates, the linear distances between the landmarks of interest were calculated and presented as indices. The analysis of variance and Student's t-test were used for assessing the regions of birth and gender, respectively. The collected data allowed obtaining the facial profile of the young adult Brazilian population. There were differences in the facial profiles between men and women and also between some regions, especially between the N and the other Brazilian regions (p<0.05). The UFI did not show a statistically significant difference (p>0.05) between genders for any of the regions. The discriminant analysis for gender assessment demonstrated higher accuracy when the three indices were analyzed together. In the decision tree for gender assessment, the NI showed better results than the other indices.