Prevalence of Leptoprosopic Type of Face among Dental Students: A Cross-Sectional study

INTRODUCTION: Facial index is useful for anatomists, forensic scientists and plastic surgeons during treatment of congenital and traumatic deformities, identification of individuals in medico-legal cases and identifying craniofacial deformities and they help us in distinguishing one person from another. Very few researchers from Nepal have worked on these facial features with respect to population and environment. The study aims to find the prevalence of leptoprosopic type of face among dental students of Kantipur Dental College, Kathmandu, Nepal. METHODS: The descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 173 dental students of age group 17-25 years in the Department of Anatomy, Kantipur Dental College Teaching Hospital and Research Center, Basundhara, Kathmandu from September to December 2018. Ethical clearance was obtained from Institutional Review Committee of the institution and convenience sampling was done. The facial parameters include facial height, facial width which was measured using Digital Vernier Caliper and Sliding Caliper respectively. The face was classified into three different types based on the value of facial index, according to Bannister Classification. Data was analyzed using SPSS 20. RESULTS: Prevalence of leptoprosopic type of face was 70 (40.46%) [40.39-40.53 at 95%CI]. Among these, 37 (21.39%) were males and 33 (19.07%) were females. Leptoprosopic was most common which was followed by hyperleptoprosopic in 64 (36.99%), mesoprosopic in 26 (15.03%), euryprosopic in 12 (6.94%) and hypereuryprosopic facial types in 1 (0.58%). All three facial parameters including facial height, facial width and facial index were greater in male than in female. CONCLUSIONS: This study concludes that the leptoprosopic face was most common followed by hyperleptoprosopic, mesoprosopic, europrosopic and hypereuroprosopic type of face.