Long-term Soft Tissue Changes after Orthodontic and Surgical Corrections of Skeletal Class III Malocclusions

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate long-term soft tissue changes after orthodontic and surgical corrections of skeletal Class III malocclusions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Postoperative cephalometric radiographs at 1 year and at 5 years or more after treatment were digitized for 92 patients who had surgical correction of their Class III problem by LeFort I maxillary advancement (n = 48), mandibular setback (n = 12), or a combination of the two procedures (n = 32) and for 25 patients who received orthodontic treatment only. RESULTS: For all groups, the mean changes were quite small. For most measurements, fewer than 20% of patients experienced long-term changes from 2 mm to 4 mm, and fewer than 10% experienced long-term changes greater than 4 mm. CONCLUSIONS: A smaller percentage of surgically treated Class III patients showed long-term soft tissue changes than did surgically treated Class II patients, but compared with both Class II patients and untreated adults they experienced greater long-term forward projection of the soft tissue chin.