Comparison of positive clinical and computerized visual treatment objectives in prediction of soft tissue profile of skeletal class II patients.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to compare the soft tissue prediction obtained via positive clinical visual treatment objective (VTO) with computerized VTO in patients with skeletal Class II malocclusion. Methods: 30 skeletal class II patients with ANB>4 were included in the study. Computerized VTO was done using pretreatment lateral cephalograms and profile picture at rest using the Viewbox software. Clinical VTO was obtained by asking the patient to protrude lower jaw in 5mm increments and the obtained profile photographs superimposed on the initial profile at rest. Distances in soft tissue points between computerized VTO and clinical VTO were measured in millimeters at eight cephalometric soft tissue landmarks. Paired-sample t tests were done for intergroup comparisons. Results: For most of the variables, no significant differences were found between the groups. In the X-axis the most accurate prediction was found to be mentolabial sulcus while soft tissue menton was the least accurate landmark succeeded by soft tissue gnathion. In the Y-axis, stomion superius prediction and labrale inferius prediction were the most accurate measurements while mentolabial sulcus prediction was the least accurate. None of the differences were clinically significant. Conclusions: The soft tissue outcomes of positive clinical VTO are clinically acceptable in both sagittal and vertical planes and can be used for estimating post treatment soft tissue profile in skeletal class II patients.