The Association between Cranial Base and Maxillomandibular Sagittal and Transverse Relationship: A CBCT Study

Abstract

The cranial base has a crucial effect on the position of the maxilla and mandible. This study aims to investigate the relationship between the cranial base sagittal and transverse dimensions in different skeletal patterns. This is a retrospective study of pre-existing CBCT images of 132 subjects (60 males and 72 females) from Saudi Arabia with a mean age of 35 years old. The grouping of the subjects was based on the ANB angle of Steiner’s analysis. One-way ANOVA was used to compare the means of the sagittal and transverse dimensions between different skeletal patterns, followed by a post hoc test for individual comparisons. Logistic regression analysis was performed to test the relationship between gender, age, and cephalometric values between the three groups. The significance level was 0.05. One-way ANOVA revealed a statistically significant difference in posterior cranial base length (p < 0.05) and total cranial base length (p < 0.05) among different skeletal patterns. Tukey’s post hoc analysis showed that skeletal class II had a smaller posterior cranial base and total cranial base length when compared to the other groups. The class II skeletal pattern has a smaller posterior cranial base and total cranial base when compared to skeletal class I and class III skeletal patterns.