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A 3D computerized tomography study of changes in craniofacial morphology of Portuguese skulls from the eighteenth century to the present

  • review article
  • Published:
international journal of stomatology & occlusion medicine

Abstract

This study examined the three-dimensional (3D) changes in craniofacial morphology between 482 identified Portuguese skulls from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries and 150 modern Portuguese individuals randomly selected from the armed forces. The goal was to investigate the interrelationship between changes in various parts of the skull, in particular, the cranial base, the brain supporting structures, and the face. Cone beam computed tomography images from the identified skull collections belonging to the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Coimbra and Natural History National Museum of Lisbon were used. These 3D images from craniometric analyses included 19 different linear, angular, and orthogonal 3D measurements. The trend in horizontal position of the maxilla (SNA) and horizontal position of the mandible (SNB) angles showed a significant increase, while the relative position of the maxilla to mandible (ANB) and the global angle mean values decreased over time. Skulls from each subsequent century demonstrated a decrease in anterior cranial base, indicated by the mean distance between S and N landmarks. Significant negative correlations were found between SNA and anterior cranial base length (S-N). The negative correlations between SNB and anterior cranial base length (S-N) decreased from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. The twenty-first century skulls were characterized by a significant difference in the mean value of different craniofacial variables between males and females. The results of this study suggest changes in the 3D cephalometric measurements of craniofacial architecture. These changes are highly integrated, and show an interesting correlation between structures of the craniofacial facial complex and the anterior cranial base.

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Acknowledgments

This work was performed at the Research Institute of Occlusion Medicine and the Research Centre of Brain and Oral Science, Kanagawa Dental College, and was supported by a grant-in-aid for Open Research from SICAT GmbH & Co. Germany. The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Ludwig-Slavicek Foundation, to the Department of Life Sciences at University of Coimbra Portugal, to Professor H. Cardoso (Natural History Museum of Lisbon), to the postgraduate students (skull project) involved in the data collection process, especially M. Tanaka, O. Takeda, and S. Kishimoto, and to the members of the orthodontic department and to Professors J. Freitas and L. Lourenço.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there are no actual or potential conflicts of interest in relation to this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Orthodontics, Department of Craniofacial Growth and Development Dentistry, Kanagawa Dental University, Inaoka-cho 82, Yokosuka, Japan

    Heloísa Helena Filipe Alves Proença & Sadao Sato

  2. Department of Interdisciplinary Dentistry and Technology, Danube-University, 3500, Krems, Austria

    Rudolf Slavicek

  3. Department of Life Sciences, Forensic Sciences Center, Coimbra University, 3004-531, Coimbra, Portugal

    Eugénia Cunha

  4. Rua Manuel Antonio de Brito, 6 1ºfrt, 7800-522, Beja, Portugal

    Heloísa Helena Filipe Alves Proença

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  1. Heloísa Helena Filipe Alves Proença
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  2. Rudolf Slavicek
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  3. Eugénia Cunha
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  4. Sadao Sato
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Correspondence to Heloísa Helena Filipe Alves Proença.

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Alves Proença, H., Slavicek, R., Cunha, E. et al. A 3D computerized tomography study of changes in craniofacial morphology of Portuguese skulls from the eighteenth century to the present. J. Stomat. Occ. Med. 7, 33–45 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12548-014-0105-3

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