[Evaluation of the applicability of a mathematical model in the x-ray cephalometric diagnosis of sagittal bite anomalies. A clinical test].

The mathematical model (Järvinen) for measuring the sagittal difference between the maxillary and mandibular apical bases has been clinically tested. The material for this study consisted of 30 lateral skull radiographs of orthodontically untreated children (aged seven to 15 years) with different types of skeletal and/or dento-alveolar malocclusions. A comparison of the model with two conventional and two more developed methods to measure the sagittal apical base difference showed that the correlation between the new and the older methods increased as the errors of the older methods were eliminated. The results seemed to indicate that sagittal malocclusions could be accurately diagnosed by means of the model.