Sex Differences in the Mandibular Rami of Korean Adults: Radiographic Study

Park, Sung Pil; Kim, Hee Jin; Hu, Kyung Seok; Park, Kwang Kyun; Koh, Ki Seok

Abstract

Mandibles and crania were measured with anthrophological methods on cephalometric radiogrphs of 241 Korean adults. It was tried to identify sex differences with a special attention to the mandibular flexure. The relationships between mandibular flexure and mandibular growth pattern, antegonial notch, and gonial angle were investigated. Most of measurements except gonial angle were larger in male than in female. However, the cranial base angle was larger in female than in male and the height of mandibular flexure was higher in female. Mandibular flexure tends to be deeper when gonial angle is small, mandibular ramus is long, and antegonial notch is deep. Mandibular body length becomes larger when SNB becomes larger. As mandibular plane angle becomes larger, so cranial base angle and gonial angle become larger and as mandibular plane angle does, so maximum cranial height and SNB become smaller. In conclusion, sex difference of mandibular flexure is important, however, sex determination accuracy using mandibular flexure is not accurate as previously reported.