Surgical treatment of the short face syndrome

The short face syndrome is basically caused by one of four deviations: vertically deficient anterior height of the mandible, retropositioned mandible with pronounced vertical overbite, retropositioning of the maxilla with overclosure of the mandible, or maxillary vertical deficiency and short middle third of the face. For each group, there is a surgical standard solution, including the sandwich osteotomy of the chin, lengthening of the mandible, advancement and eventual lowering of the maxilla, and advancement with vertical lengthening of the middle third after Le Fort II osteotomy. Treatment planning depends to a great extent on clinical evaluation and the vertical discrepancy often loses its clinical importance if the anteroposterior deviation is completely corrected.