[The intraoral determination of the sagittal condyle path inclination during face-bow recording]

In a clinical trial involving 40 fully dentate persons, three different intraoral procedures to determine the sagittal condyle path inclination were checked for accuracy. In each test person the condyle path inclination was determined three times, i.e. by the central bearing point method, the protrusive check-bite method and by a protrusive bite record integrated in the bite fork. At 5 mm of protrusion the reproducibility of the results obtained with the central bearing point method (mean value 2.1 +/- 2.0 degrees) were far better than that with either of the two other methods; the difference was statistically significant. The protrusive check-bite records and the protrusive bite fork records did not differ from each other as far as their accuracy was concerned (mean values 3.6 +/- 2.1 degrees and 3.4 +/- 1.6 degrees, respectively). The mean value of the condyle path inclination to the hinge axis infra-orbital plane in the sample was about 50 +/- 8 degrees regardless of the method used. Thus, protrusion records can be integrated in the face bow transfer.