Soft Tissue Cephalometric Analysis

In orthodontics, one of the primary aims of the treatment is to attain and preserve the facial attractiveness.1Traditionallyemphasis was on the dental and skeletal component for the diagnosis and treatment planning. For 100 years, orthodontic theory and practice was largely based on the Angle paradigm which considered ideal dental occlusion ‘nature’s intended ideal form’. With the advent of Cephalometry, the dentoskeletal relations became the decisive factor in facial analysis and the soft tissues were kept secondary. Now variation is accepted as the norm; ideal occlusion is the exception rather than the rule, and the orthodontist and nature are often adversaries. In the emerging soft tissue paradigm, diagnosis and treatment planning places greater emphasis on clinical examination of soft tissue function and esthetics. Orthodontist must understand the soft tissue behaviour in relation to the orthopaedic and orthodontic changes for accurately predicting the soft tissue response to hard tissue changes. Earlier it was thought that facial contours were the result of underlying hard tissue position and the subsequent soft tissue drape.