The visible portion of upper anterior teeth at rest

Abstract

Back ground: Esthetics has become a respectable concept in dentistry. In the past, the importance of esthetics was discounted in favor of concepts such as function, structure and biology. In today's, treatment planning must begin with well defined esthetic objectives. The visibility of upper anterior tooth surface with lip at rest is an important factor in determining prosthodontic outcome. A study was therefore, undertaken to investigate the degree of visibility of maxillary anterior teeth surfaces when the lip at rest.
Materials and method: 140 patients were examined. All the subject had maxillary anterior teeth present with no caries, restorations, sever attrition, mobility, or obvious deformities. The portions of upper anterior teeth that were visible were measured vertically using millimeter ruler.
Results: females showed more of the maxillary central and lateral incisors than males, while the difference in canine was not significant. With increasing age, the amount of maxillary anterior teeth that was visible at rest decreased. Most subjects with shorter upper lips displayed more maxillary anterior teeth than those with longer upper lips.
Conclusion: The degree of visibility of maxillary anterior teeth is determined by muscle position that varies from one person to another. These results provide practical guidelines for vertical positioning of the maxillary teeth.