Perioral Anthropometric Indices: Its Relevance in Reconstructive Surgery

Abstract

Background: The perioral region plays an important role in facial recognition, gender classification, esthetics, facial expression, speech and eating. Aim: To establish normative perioral data for South-East, Nigerian children Methods: A sample of 120 healthy subjects within the age range of 1 to 5 years were enrolled in this study. Two dimensional photographs of the face were captured non-invasively using a Nikon D 90 camera, ten perioral landmarks were identified and four indices deduced Results: It was observed that vertical mouth height index, upper lip thickness and lip index in the males showed higher values when compared to the females which indicates sexual dimorphism (P≤0.05). Most children in our cohort were classified as having a thick lip index, mouth of intermediate height in relation to the height of the face, thick upper and lower lip thickness index, narrow mouth in relation to the width of the eyes. The mean values of Vermillion height of Lower lip and Lower Lip Thickness Index was also observed to be consistently higher when compared to upper lip in both sexes. Conclusion: The study presents a primary data base for perioral anthropometric indices of children in South-East Nigerian which can aid ethnic specific postoperative evaluation of congenital or post-traumatic orofacial reconstructive surgeries.