Confidence interval for the standards of the Ricketts´ summarized cephalogram in Cuban children

Abstract

Introduction: in cephalometric findings from different countries in populations with normal growing and occlusion patterns, significant statistic differences are reported in relation to the values given in the cephalograms of Ricketts, Steiner, Downs, Jarabak, and others. In Cuba there are not studies of these patterns in children with mixed dentition that might allow a better diagnosis of dental, maxilla-facial anomalies.

Objective: to propose the improvement of the standards of the Ricketts abridge cephalogram for children.

Materials and methods: descriptive, observational research in four populations belonging to different regions of the country: Matanzas, Cárdenas, Camagüey and Sancti Spíritus. The universe was formed by 1675 children aged 9 years old; the sample, 163 children with normal dental occlusion, was chosen by the stratified method per conglomerate. The analysis of the Ricketts summarized cephalogram and the mean T test were used to determine the values of the studied variables; punctual estimates and estimates by confidence interval were carried out.
Results: three variables showed equal means than Ricketts’ standards: facial axis (90o), facial depth (87o) and maxillary depth (90o). In the remaining variables there were found significant differences. A confidence interval was obtained for every one of the Ricketts’ summarized cephalogram variable.
Conclusions: only three variables showed values similar to those given by Ricketts. The remaining ones presented values significantly differing from those established by Ricketts. The proposition is using the confidence interval obtained in this research in the variables of the Ricketts’ summarized cephalogram to diagnose the dental-maxilla-facial anomalies in Cuban children.