Geometric morphometric analysis of the palatal morphology in growing subjects with skeletal open bite

Objectives: To assess the morphological shape variations of the palatal vault in Open Bite (OB)growing subjects when compared with a Control Group (CG) by means of Geometric MorphometricMethod (GMM).Materials and methods: The OB Group (OBG) consisted of 75 subjects (39 females, 36 males;mean age: 8.5 ± 0.8 years) who were collected retrospectively with the following inclusioncriteria: European ancestry, overbite less than 0 mm, mixed dentition stage, prepubertal skeletalmaturation (CS1-CS2), hyperdivergent skeletal pattern (SN^GoGn > 37°). The OBG was comparedwith a CG of 46 prepubertal subjects presenting normal occlusion (24 females, 22 males; meanage of 8.3 ± 1.7 years). For each subject, lateral cephalograms and maxillary dental casts wereavailable. Landmarks and semilandmarks were digitized on digital dental casts and GMM wasapplied. Procrustes analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were performed. OBG wasdivided in two subgroups: Sucking Habits Group (SHG) (39 subjects) and Non-Sucking HabitsGroup (NSHG) (36 subjects).Results: PC1 showed significant morphological changes in transverse and vertical dimensions with OBG palates higher and narrower when compared with CG. When comparing the two subgroups no statistically significant differences were found. NSHG demonstrated a slight reduction of the transverse dimension and a deeper palatal vault respect to SHG.Limitations: The limitations of this study were the division of OBG in two subgroups based on referral of thumb sucking habits without assessing the duration and the intensity of thumb sucking.Conclusions: OB subjects presented with a significant constriction of the maxillary arch when compared with CG. The morphological palatal shape variations in OBG were not influenced by the presence or absence of non-nutritive sucking habits.