Assessment of orbital dystopia in patients with dentofacial deformity

The study investigated vertical orbital dystopia in patients with dentofacial deformities and its impact on coronal plane orientation. This retrospective analysis included 79 patients (52 females, 27 males, mean age 27.64 years) with dentofacial deformity who underwent orthognathic surgery from 2019 to 2022 with preoperative cone-beam computed tomography. Bilateral hard tissue measurements were performed using virtual orthognathic planning software (NemoFAB, Nemotec, Spain). Two anatomical landmarks were measured vertically to assess the severity and direction of orbital asymmetry. Of the 79 patients, 56 had class III and 23 had class II skeletal deformity. There were no significant differences between patients based on gender or Angle classification. Orbital dystopia was statistically significant (73.4%) among the study population (P = 0.05). The severity and the direction were analysed, respectively; no correlation was found between the orbitalis inferior (r = 0.052, P = 0.73) and the orbitalis superior (r = -0.060, P = 0.67). The study suggests that focusing solely on the orbital region in orthognathic surgery planning may lead to inaccuracies due to the prevalence of orbital dystopia in dentofacial deformity patients.