Short-term and long-term soft tissue profile changes after mandibular advancements using rigid fixation techniques.

This study was designed to describe short- and long-term soft tissue profile changes that follow surgical advancement of the mandible, to provide a database for prediction of facial changes following surgery. A number of hard and soft tissue landmarks were identified on serial cephalometric tracings of 31 patients. The long-term data (x = 14.0 months postsurgery) showed that changes in soft tissue landmarks overlying the skeletal structures followed their hard tissue counterpart in a 1:1 ratio in the horizontal direction. Horizontal hard to soft tissue landmark changes between mandibular incisor and lower lip, however, were found to be different; the average ratio was 0.43:1.00. Short-term data (x = 2.7 months postsurgery) showed soft tissue changes to be stable when compared to long-term changes.