ANB skeletal types correlated to facial morphology: Euclidean distance matrix analysis

Pretreatment lateral skull radiographs of 145 patients aged 7 to 20 years are classified according to an ANB-angle reading corrected for the position of the maxilla and rotation of the jaw. The Euclidean distance matrix analysis is applied to compare the overall facial morphology between Classes I and II. This method differentiates between size and shape and localizes those areas that differ the most. Statistically significant different facial morphologies were demonstrated in the 32 patients aged 15 years or more. The younger patients with skeletal Classes I and II did not possess these different morphological characteristics. The results show that standard cephalometric classification criteria do not always correlate to actual differences in the overall facial morphology.