Correlation of Morphological Variants of Soft Palate and Types of Occlusion in Patients Seeking Orthodontic Assessment

Aim-Aim of our study is to investigate the correlation between various shapes of soft palate and types of malocclusion in patients seeking orthodontic treatment. Material and methods-The study included 52 patients (male-26, Female-26) seeking orthodontic treatment for malocclusion age ranging from 14 to 28 years. Clinically in all the subjects the type of malocclusion was examined and categorised according to Angles classification of malocclusion. The morphological variants of soft palate were assessed on digital lateral cephalogram and were allotted to one of the six patterns described by You et al. The differences in the proportion of each type were studied and variation of malocclusion and soft palate morphology between the genders were also assessed. The results obtained were subjected to statistical analysis to find the if there is any correlation between variants of soft palate and types of Angles classification of malocclusion. Results-In our study the frequency of rat tail (40.4 %) type of soft palate was seen in highest proportion where the frequency of distorted/s shaped and butt shaped (5.8 %) soft palate was the least. Angles class I malocclusion was most common and leaf shaped soft palate was commonly found among them. Patients with class II malocclusion frequently had rat tail shaped soft palate. Among patients with class III malocclusion both leaf and rat tail shaped were equally found. We also found that there is no significant correlation between Angles malocclusion and variants of soft palate.