Analysis of soft tissue profile changes after mandibular advancement surgery

The aim of this study was to analyze changes in soft tissue profile after mandibular advancement surgery, with special emphasis on the effect of skeletal relapse and different Class II facial patterns. The cephalometric radiographs of 30 consecutive patients (24 women and 6 men, mean age 23 years) who underwent sagittal split osteotomy were studied. The radiographs were taken immediately before operation, at one week and 14 months postoperatively. To analyze the possible influence of hyper- and hypodivergent facial patterns, the patients were classified into low- (4 patients), medium- (16 patients) and high-angle (10 patients) groups according to the magnitude of the mandibulonasal plane angle. The main movement occurred in the horizontal plane. Soft tissue pogonion and mentolabial fold were found to follow the underlying skeletal structures in a nearly 1:1 ratio. On final follow-up, skeletal relapse of 1.3 mm was measured at B-point and of 1.5 mm at pogonion. Taking the skeletal relapses into account, the ratios of both corresponding soft tissue references (alternative ratios) dropped to 60%. Soft tissue pogonion is the most reliable reference for the planning of mandibular advancement. The ratio of soft tissue movement to final skeletal position at the chin amounts to 60% for a realistic prediction. However, the low-angle group differed from other groups by showing a markedly low soft-to-hard tissue ratio of only 14% at pogonion and a high ratio of 109% at the mentolabial fold. However, these differences in ratios between the groups were statistically not significant.