Assessment of reliability of anthropometric measurements accepted in dentate population to establish vertical dimension of occlusion in completely edentulous patients: A Cross sectional study

Establishing the correct vertical dimension of occlusion is of paramount importance in rehabilitation of completely edentulous patients both for optimum function and aesthetics. The loss of vertical dimension plays a havoc on the stomatognathic system in the form of degenerative changes in the tissues, bone as well as the temporomandibular joint due to the disharmony in the masticatory system. Diverse techniques have been suggested to determine the correct vertical dimension of occlusion, like the use of physiologic rest position, phonetics method, tactile sense, aesthetic appearance, swallowing threshold, cephalometric radiograph, pre-extraction record, Boos bimetre method, electromyographic methods, anthropological measurement and many more. Despite the popularity of using rest position as a starting point of determining VDO, it has been debated by few other authors.The determination of VDO in edentulous patients has always been relied on the measurement of VDR which shows subjective variability. Hence some fixed anthropological measurements can be utilized to determine the VDO to minimize subjective variability. There can be some variation between craniofacial distances and the VDO due to gender and racial differences. To some extent the variations in all the measurements found may be due to the differences in measuring techniques, ethnicities of the population and sample size studied. However, if an anthropometric correlation is found between the VDO of dentulous patients in local population which is static and easily accessible to the clinician, the time taken for establishing VDO in edentulous patients could be significantly reduced. As these are objective measurements rather than subjective criteria, the guesswork in VDO will be eliminated. Considering the paucity of data on this topic, our study aims to check the reliability of such correlation of anthropological measurements in establishing vertical dimension of occlusion in edentulous local population. Such correlation between anthropometric measurements and VDO would give clinicians an evidence-based approach to establish VDO during rehabilitation of edentulous patients. This cross-sectional study will be conducted in Department of Prosthodontics and Crown & Bridge. The study population will be selected from the pool of dentulous and edentulous patients reporting to the department of Oral Medicine, Diagnosis and Radiology and department of Prosthodontics and Crown and Bridge fulfilling inclusion and exclusion criteria. Total of 500 patient selected for this study, 250 dentate and 250 edentulous patients depending on inclusion and exclusion criterion. Further this study population is divided into four groups. Group 1 (G1) –125 dentate male, Group 2 (G2) - dentate female, Group 3 (G3) edentulous male and Group 4 (G4) edentulous female. All the facial and finger measurements will be recorded clinically using a digital vernier calliper with an accuracy of 0.01 mm.