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Updated: Nov 14, 2025
A Postoperative Evaluation Guideline for Computer-Assisted Reconstruction of the Mandible
Published on: January 28, 2020
Upper Airway Changes Following Different Orthognathic Surgeries, Evaluated by Cone Beam Computed Tomography: A
Abbas Shokri1, Kousar Ramezani2, Arghavan Afshar3
1Dental Implant Research Center, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology.
Purpose:
This study sought to assess the upper airway changes following different orthognathic surgeries using cone-beam computed tomography.
Methods:
An electronic search of the literature was conducted in major electronic databases including Medline (PubMed), Web of Science, Scopus, and Open Grey for articles published up to January 20, 2018. Human studies that evaluated the changes in the volume and minimum cross-sectional area of the upper airway or its subdivisions in patients who had undergone orthognathic surgery by use of cone-beam computed tomography were included. Manual search of the bibliographies of the included articles was also conducted. The included studies underwent risk of bias assessment.
Results:
A total of 1330 articles were retrieved. After excluding the duplicates and irrelevant articles, 41 studies fulfilled the eligibility criteria for this systematic review; out of which, 30 entered the meta-analysis. The majority of studies had a medium risk of bias. Mandibular setback, and maxillary advancement + mandibular setback decreased the volume of the upper airway (-6042.87 mm3 and -1498.78 mm3, respectively) and all its subdivisions in long-term (>3 months), except for the nasopharynx, the volume of which increased following maxillary advancement + mandibular setback. Mandibular advancement and maxillomandibular advancement both increased the upper airway volume in long-term (7559.38 mm3 and 7967.06 mm3, respectively); however, only the changes after the former procedure were significant. The minimum cross-sectional area increased after maxillomandibular advancement (161.43 mm2), and decreased following maxillary advancement + mandibular setback (-23.79 mm2) in long-term.
Conclusion:
There is moderate evidence to suggest that mandibular advancement is the only orthognathic movement that provides a statistically significant change in long-term upper airway volume.
