Method of constructing an occlusion line on a lateral teleroentgenogram in physiological occlusion

The relevance of the work is determined by contradictory information about the location of the occlusal plane in the structure of the skull and in the differences in the use of landmarks for its construction. The aim of the work was to develop a method for constructing an occlusal line on a lateral teleradiograph during physiological occlusion. To achieve the goal, a retrospective analysis of 126 archival teleradiographs of patients with physiological occlusion was carried out. The vertical dimensions of the face were estimated by the size of the nasal complex between the points “n-sn” in comparison with the intermaxillary distance “sn-sm”. An occlusal line connected the anterior (vPOcP) and posterior (hPOcP) occlusal points. The analysis of the position of the joint was evaluated by the point “Cond” located at the top of the articular head. As a result of an analytical study of lateral teleradiographs of people with physiological occlusion, a method for constructing an occlusal plane (line) was developed, based on determining the vertical dimensions of the face, the location of the articular head in the structure of the skull and the mutual arrangement of geometric diagnostic figures of the craniofacial complex. A distinctive feature of the proposed method was the construction of the articular circle, which, from our point of view, is the center of the biomechanics of the lower jaw. The parallelism of the occlusal plane with the line drawn from the mandibular landmark of the anterior surface of the lower jaw tangentially to the articular circle allows its use in clinical practice as a guideline for predicting the prosthetic plane in distally unbounded defects of the dental arches in the lateral segments.