Components of adult Class III malocclusion.

To identify the skeletal and dental relationships of adults who have class III malocclusion, lateral cephalograms of 302 adult patients who had a class III molar and cuspid relationship were traced. Ninety-four of the patients had had presurgical orthodontic treatment and 208 had not. The tracings were digitized, and the following sets of measures were analyzed: maxillary skeletal position; maxillary dentoalveolar position; mandibular dentoalveolar position; and mandibular skeletal position. In addition, the mandibular plane angle and lower anterior facial height were measured as an indicator of vertical facial dimensions. None of these values demonstrated significant gender differences except lower anterior facial height; therefore, the subjects were treated as a group. Although there was considerable variation among patients, the most common combination of variables was a retrusive maxilla, protrusive maxillary incisors, retrusive mandibular incisors, a protrusive mandible, and a long lower facial height.