A comparative study of palatal height in a Saudi and Egyptian population

Abstract

The present study constitutes an attempt to compare normal traits for palatal height and width at different stages of dentition development of two ethnic groups of the Middle East. The observations were obtained from 346 randomly selected normal subjects, 188 Saudis and 158 Egyptians. The stone models were divided into three categories in both groups--primary, mixed and permanent dentitions. Palatal index values were calculated at two levels. Vernier calipers were used to measure the palatal width. Palatal depth was measured by profile Gauge by Vitrex. The results of this study demonstrate no significant difference between ethnic groups at levels 1 and 2 in relation to the palatal height, width and index. For both groups, palatal index increased significantly from the primary to mixed and permanent dentition at level 1. At level 2, palatal index and height showed decreases in measurement in the mixed dentition compared with the primary and the permanent dentitions. Subjective assessment of the palatal height correlated with palatal index. The casts were then labelled so that the shallow group had the smallest palatal index followed by the normal and the deep group had the largest palatal index. The results contribute to the information available on the development of palatal shape within two Middle Eastern populations. Knowledge of the normal range in shape can act as a baseline for studies of certain oral developmental abnormalities.

Three‐dimensional hard tissue palatal size and shape in human adolescents and adults

“…They seem best suited for the analysis of selected patients (for instance, cleft-palate children), but are of difficult application for a wide-scale collection of refer-ence data. Time, as well as method error and lack of computerized interfaces, also limit direct caliper techniques (11)(12)(13)(14). To overcome the loss of the third coordinate, two-dimensional methods often physically slice the cast, thus destroying the specimen (27,28).…”

“…However, quantitative investigations of normal palatal size and shape are uncommon. As recently reviewed by Ferrario et al (8,9), the main shortcoming seems to be technical: direct techniques (10)(11)(12)(13)(14), in which several standardized landmarks are used as endpoints for caliper measurements, are time-consuming and prone to error, and they cannot answer all the needs of the recently developed computerized methods of treatment planning (8,11,15,16). Indirect analyses, with the use of two-dimensional projections (radiographs, photographs, or photocopies), are insufficient for the palate: while the loss of the third dimension does not significantly influence dental arch form in the horizontal plane, it hinders most investigations of palatal morphology (8,17).…”

Palatal dimensions at different stages of dentition in 5 to 18-year-old Iranian children and adolescent with normal occlusion

“…The palatal height increases continuously, with a higher rate between 5 to 16 years of age [ 1 ]. However, there are few studies investigating the palatal height in normal occlusion [ 1 , 18 , 24 ].…”

“…The palatal height index is obtained from the combination of the dimensions of height and width which was first introduced by Korkhaus [ 25 ]. There are few reports of palatal height index changes during growth in normal occlusion [ 18 , 26 , 27 ].…”

Modelling human hard palate shape with Bézier curves

“…There are indications that various parameters describing HP shape (such as height, width and arch length) vary between individuals [ 16 , 40 , 41 ] and possibly also between populations [ 42 – 46 ]. Moreover, variation between individuals in the shape of the HP might affect articulatory variability [ 27 , 28 ], the articulation of /∫/ in German [ 47 ] of various consonants in Japanese [ 29 ], and of the “bunched” versus “retroflex” North American English /r/ [ 48 ], among others (see [ 16 ] for more examples).…”