Influence of Malocclusion on Masticatory Sounds: A In vivo Study

Abstract

Background: Orthodontic correction is usually focused on dental esthetics; however, masticatory function is an important parameter to assess the success of treatment. The main objective of this study is to determine if an association exists between malocclusion and chewing sounds, after being assessed with three different food types. How far a malocclusion alters an individual's chewing nature can aid us in assessing the potential of teeth alignment in mastication and the consequence of orthodontic correction on the same. Methodology: The study was conducted on three groups of patients (Class I normal occlusion, Class I with increased overjet, and Class II div 1). The patients were asked to chew three types of food items; apple, biscuit, and peanut. The recordings were taken inside an acoustically treated soundproof box using an AKG HC 577 L microphone with a sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz in mono with 32 bits per sample. The recordings were analyzed using WavePad FFT software in a Mac laptop and plotted as a spectrogram using the Hanning window function. Results: The results showed that there was no significant difference between the groups for all the three types of food materials. Conclusion: The results of this study showed insignificant association between malocclusion and masticatory sounds. A more comprehensive study with a larger sample size will be needed to analyze the results further.