Condylar positioning in orthognathic surgery

Aim: Orthognathic surgery aims to correct facial skeletal deformities and the correct condylar positioning is very important for stable results. The aim of the present study was to verify the occurrence of changes in the postoperative condylar positioning in artificial skulls with a skeletal Class II maxillomandibular relationship submitted to bilateral sagittal split osteotomy when the method of cephalometric data transfer was used. Methods: Ten skeletal Angle class II polyurethane skulls were used with metallic markers in the articular surfaces of the temporomandibular joint and mandibular condyles. The skulls were submitted to preoperative and postoperative cone beam computed tomography before and after the bilateral sagittal split osteotomy. To verify the condylar positioning, measurements between the distances of the markers at the temporal bones and mandibular condyles were taken in the coronal and sagittal views by the DISTANCE tool of the iCat Vision software. All measurements were obtained by one examiner in the preoperative and postoperative CBCTs, tabulated and submitted to statistical analysis by the Wilcoxon test with a level of significance of 5% (p