Orthognathic surgery of mandibular asymmetry: which results can we expect with and without chin wing? A cohort out of 51 cases

Abstract

The aim of this retrospective cohort is to evaluate the amount of postsurgical correction of soft and hard tissues in patients with mandibular asymmetries and to compare the results with and without surgery of the lower mandibular contour (chin wing…). Mandibular asymmetries cases of three surgeons were systematically included. The angles of deviation of the chin, bi-commissural, bi-gonic and occlusal were measured on face photography and radiography. A pre and post-surgical comparison was performed and the amount of correction was analyzed via the Wilcoxon statistical test. 51 patients (44 women and 7 men) were included. After surgery, the correction is significant for all measurements with an improvement of 44 to 60% depending on the measured angles. No patient is normalized but the small initial mandibular asymmetries are the closest to normal after surgery. The correction of the bi-commissural angle is controlled without being optimal (60% correction). The difficulty remains the horizontalization of the bi-gonial plan which is only corrected at 45%. Patients with mandibular margin surgery (chin wing…) showed the greatest improvement in bi-gonial (p = 0.0142) and occlusal (p = 0.0154) angles. If surgery allows a significant correction of facial dissymmetry, this is not complete. Surgical procedures on the lower edge of the mandible such as the chin wing could provide a better correction especially for bi-gonial and occlusal angles.