Panel perception of change in facial aesthetics following orthodontic treatment in adolescents.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the influence of the characteristics of panel members, the effects of gender and Angle Class of adolescent patients on their change in facial aesthetics following orthodontic treatment, and to assess the optimal panel size for epidemiological studies on changes in facial aesthetics after orthodontic treatment. A panel of 74 adult laymen (35 males and 39 females) and a panel of 87 orthodontists (37 males and 50 females) evaluated sets of three post-treatment standardized photographs (one frontal, one three-quarter smiling, and one lateral) of 64 adolescent orthodontic patients in relation to the pre-treatment sets of the same patient on a five-point scale. The main effects of professional background, age, gender, and geographic region of the panel members on the aesthetic scores, as well as their first order interactions were evaluated by multilevel models. Professional background, age, gender, and geographical region of panel members have an influence on the evaluation of the change of facial aesthetics following orthodontic treatment. The effect of gender and Angle Class of the patients on the scores was evaluated by two-way analysis of variance. There was no difference in the mean scores for boys and girls. Improvement of facial aesthetics by orthodontic treatment was significant for Class I, Class II division 1, and Class II division 2 patients, but not for Class III patients. Based on the intraclass correlation coefficient, a panel of nine randomly selected orthodontists, a panel of 14 randomly selected laymen, or a mixed panel of 13 individuals is sufficient to obtain reliable results in the aesthetic evaluation of adolescent faces, using photographs and a five-point scale.