Nasal and Labio-Oral Angles in Young Adult Indigenous Ghanaians

Abstract Background/Objective : The paucity of normative angular nasal and labio-oral anthropometric data on indigenous sub-Saharan Africans hinders the aesthetic effectiveness of reconstructive/plastic surgery on their faces. This data void also negatively affects their facial biometrics, information retrieval, forensics, dentistry, and beauty analysis. This study contributes to filling this gap by generating normative values for the nasal and labio-oral angles in young adult autochthonic Africans living in Ghana. Methods : One hundred and five volunteers (54 males and 51 females) were conveniently sampled from students at the Korle-Bu Campus of the University of Ghana. Seven nasal and labio-oral angles, namely; the Nasofrontal, Nasal tip, Nasolabial, Labiomental, Alar slope, Mandibular Frankfurt plane, and Mentocervical were measured by direct anthropometric (angle meter) and indirect anthropometric (Photogrammetry) methods. Data were assessed for sexual dimorphism using Student’s t-test. Scatter plots with Correlation Analyses were used to determine the association between the direct and indirect datasets. Results : Except for the Nasofrontal angle, which was lower in males than in females, no significant sex differences were found. For all measured angles, there were no significant differences between the values obtained using the direct and indirect anthropometric methods. Indirect measurements of each of the seven nasal and labio-oral angles strongly correlated positively with their cor-responding direct measurements. Conclusion : This study provides the first normative dataset on nasal and labio-oral angles in young Indigenous Ghanaians and shows that apart from larger nasofrontal angles in females, six other angles did not significantly differ between sexes. Our results indicate that the indirect method of measuring these angles provides a good estimate for direct measurements.