A study to establish a biometric relationship between maxillary central incisor and nail of little finger for prediction of maxillary central incisor dimensions: a preliminary study

Introduction
During prosthodontic rehabilitation, achieving esthetics is one of the primary goals of prostho¬dontists. Most often when the patient reports with missing anterior teeth and does not have previous records, such as photographs or dental casts, it would be difficult to determine the dimensions of anterior teeth. Even though size can be determined by aesthetics and function with the help of esthetic trials, they are quite arbitrary. Also, using various dental proportions can give the clinician a subjective guideline to determine the dimensions of missing anterior teeth.

Objective
This study aimed at establishing a biometric relationship between maxillary central incisor and the nail of little finger in order to predict the maxillary central incisor dimensions.

Material and methods
63 participants, with age between 20 and 40 years were included in the study. Measu¬rements of the maxillary central incisor and the nail of little finger were made using digital vernier caliper.

Results
There was a statistically significant correlation between the length of maxillary central incisor and the length of the nail of little finger (p = 0.00), and correlation between the width of central incisor and the width of the nail of little finger was found statically significant (p = 0.01).

Conclusions
The result of this study provided an equation to help to determine the length and the width of maxillary central incisor based on the dimensions of the nail of little finger.