Morphometric differentiation of the maxillary sinus in craniofacial skeletal patterns

Introduction
The literature presents studies on the relationships between the upper airway (UA) and the structures of the hard tissues of the facial skeleton.

Aim
To test the null hypothesis that there are no correlations between the measurement values of the maxillary sinus in LCRs and PA cephalometric radiographs and the values of facial skeletal classification.

Material and methods
The LCRs and PA cephalometric radiographs of Polish subjects were extracted. There were 122 subjects with LCRs and PA cephalometric radiographs enrolled in the study. The subjects’ age in the whole group ranged between 4.4 and 19.3 years old. The group was divided into 3 subgroups, based on skeletal class classification using the McNamara method, and into 2 subgroups, based on sex. Cephalometric landmarks and the maxillary sinus areas were determined in both LCRs and PA cephalometric radiographs. The cephalometric analysis was performed using the Orto-Ceph-ZPaluch software. A multivariate analysis of covariance was performed followed by post hoc tests with Tukey’s correction.

Results
The mean values of the measurements of the maxillary sinus area in LCRs and PA cephalometric radiographs were significantly related to the result values of facial skeletal classification. The mean values of the measurements of the maxillary sinus areas in LCRs and PA cephalometric radiographs in skeletal class III were significantly different from the mean values in class I and class II.

Conclusions
The null hypothesis was rejected in favor of the alternative hypothesis. The measurement values of the maxillary sinus in LCRs and PA cephalometric radiographs revealed significant relationships with the result values of facial skeletal classification. The sex and the interaction of sex with age are not factors that differentiate maxillary sinus surface area values.