Clinical photography vs digital video clips for the assessment of smile esthetics

OBJECTIVE: To test the null hypothesis that there is no clinically significant difference between the post-orthodontic treatment images of smiles of subjects captured by clinical photography and the smiles of the same subjects obtained from digital video clips. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Clinical photographs and digital video captures were obtained from 48 orthodontically treated patients. An updated version of the Smile Mesh program was used to quantify and compare smile characteristics obtained with the two methods. A paired-samples t-test was performed to test for mean differences in Smile Mesh measurements generated from both smile images. The relationship between the various Smile Mesh measurements obtained from both smile images was examined by way of Pearson product-moment correlation. RESULTS: A significant difference was found between 7 of the 14 mean Smile Mesh measurements. The absolute values of all these differences, however, were smaller than 1 mm and therefore were not clinically significant. With the exception of lower lip to maxillary incisor, all measurements showed a moderate to strong relation with each other (P values ranging from .47 to .82; P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: The hypothesis cannot be rejected. A significant positive correlation was noted between Smile Mesh measurements obtained from smiles captured by clinical photography and those captured with digital video clips. This supports the conclusion that a standard digital photograph appears to be a valid tool for analysis of the posttreatment smile.