The inappropriateness of conventional cephalometrics

doi:10.1016/0002-9416(79)90093-9

American Journal of Orthodontics

Volume 75, Issue 6, June 1979, Pages 599-617

https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9416(79)90093-9 Get rights and content

Abstract

1.
1. Cephalometric conventions today may have little basis in either biology or biometrics.
2.
2. There is no theory of cephalometrics, only conventions which involve landmarks and straight lines only. These fail to capture the curving of form and its changes, exclude proper measures of size for bent structures, and misrepresent growth, portraying it as vector displacement rather than a generalized distortion.
3.
3. Conventional cephalometric procedures misinform by fabrication of misleading geometric quantities, by camouflage, particularly of remodeling, by confusion about what is happening (analysis of rotations, treating shape separately from size, and registering angles on landmarks as vertices), and by subtraction as a representation of growth.
4.
4. We suggest that the present systems offer little real hope of improvement sufficient to meet our needs in craniofacial growth research. We call attention to three possible techniques to be included in future cephalometric conventions: (1) tangents and curvatures, (2) Blum's medial axis (“skeleton”), and (3) biorthogonal grids.

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Science
(1977)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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Most of these studies use conventional cephalometric analyses to assess craniofacial shape differences between cohorts of interest, which primarily rely on linear and angular measurements. Such analyses pose several limitations, including statistical problems resulting from multiple testing and the inability to study overall craniofacial shape as a single entity.26,31,32 Hence, we chose to employ multivariate statistical GM approaches, in which subjects are represented by their landmark configurations, allowing for a more robust statistical assessment of craniofacial shape.26,27,31,33-35
Current evidence suggests that obesity is correlated with differences in craniofacial form in children and adolescents. Here, we sought to test this hypothesis by evaluating the craniofacial form of obese and nonobese preorthodontic patients, using 2D cephalometric data combined with cephalometric and geometric morphometric approaches.
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^☆: This article comprised the Cordwainers Lecture delivered at the Institute of Dental Surgery, University of London, May 17, 1978.

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Original articleThe inappropriateness of conventional cephalometrics☆

Abstract

J. Theor. Biol.

Math. Biosci.

Comp. Biomed. Res.

Am. J. Orthod.

Shape description using weighted symmetric axis features

Orthogenesis of the hominids: An exploration using biorthogonal grids

Science

Original article
The inappropriateness of conventional cephalometrics☆