Nasolabial Angle-A: correlation between anatomic point tracing method and mean tangential lines tracing method

Objective: To determine the correlation between mean Nasolabial Angle between anatomic point tracing method and mean tangent lines tracing method. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Military Dental Centre, Combined military Hospital, Malir Cantonment Karachi Pakistan, from Jan to Jun 2022. Methodology: A total of 30 patients were included in the study. Acquired tracings were photocopied 4 times (out of these 4 tracings, 2 were used for tracing nasolabial angle by drawing anatomic landmarks method and other 2 were used for finding nasolabial angle through the tangential method). First two copies were used to trace cephalometric tracing to evaluate nasolabial angle by the same investigator using anatomic landmarks point method and tangential method after interval of 4 weeks for purpose of inspecting intra observer reproducibility. Results: Patients ranged between fifteen to twenty-five years of age with mean age of 19.6±2.8 years. Out of these patients 19(63%) were males and 11(36.7%) were females. Value of mean anatomic point tracing method was 98.5±2.6 and tangent line tracing method was 90.3±5.0. Pearson correlation coefficient between mean nasolabial angle by both of these above-mentioned methods was r=0.381 with a significant p value (p=0.038). Conclusion: After assessment of data obtained, it was established that there was a correlation between both methods of evaluating of nasolabial angle. (author)