Comparison of intermaxillary tooth size discrepancies among different malocclusion groups.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a prevalent tendency for intermaxillary tooth size discrepancies among different malocclusion groups. This study consisted of 60 subjects who served as the normal occlusion group and 300 patients divided into 5 malocclusion groups (ie, Class I with bimaxillary protrusion, Class II Division 1, Class II Division 2, Class III, and Class III surgery). Tooth size measurements were performed on the models of normal occlusion and pretreatment models of patients by the Three Dimension Measuring Machine. Moreover, tooth size ratios, analyzed as described by Bolton and the Student t test showed no sexual dimorphism for these ratios in each of 6 groups, so the sexes were combined for each group. Then these ratios were compared among different malocclusion groups. The results showed no significant difference between subcategories of malocclusion, so these groups were combined. There were now 120 cases in each of 3 categories: Class I, Class II, and Class III. A significant difference was found for all the ratios between the groups, the ratios showing that Class III > Class I > Class II. It demonstrated that intermaxillary tooth size discrepancy may be one of the important factors in the cause of malocclusions, especially in Class II and Class III malocclusions. Thus this study proved the fact that Bolton analysis should be taken into consideration during orthodontic diagnosis and therapy.