ROLE OF BUCCAL CORRIDOR IN

SMILE ESTHETICS AND ITS

CORRELATION WITH UNDERLYING
SKELETAL AND DENTAL
STRUCTURES

Tripti Tikku, Rohit Khanna, Maurya RP, Nabeel Ahmad

Purpose:
◦ This study was designed to evaluate the buccal
corridor in smile esthetics and to correlate it with
underlying hard tissues.
◦ The buccal corridor is more commonly referred by orthodontists as negative space present between the
lateral aspects of maxillary posterior teeth and the corner of the mouth during smile which appears as a
black or dark space.
◦ Frush and Fischer demonstrated that the presence of buccal corridors added the illusion of a natural
dentition ,its absence gave the patient an artificial appearance
◦ In smiling, the width of the mouth increases by as much as 30%, therefore, an excessive transverse lip
extension in smiling would produce a wider buccal corridor.
Methods:
◦ Posed smiling frontal photographs, digital posterior-anterior (PA) cephalograms,
and study models of 25 males and 25 females in age range of 18-25 years were
taken.
◦ Photographs were evaluated for smile esthetics by eight orthodontists, eight
plastic surgeons, eight beauticians and eight lay people to group them into three
groups with least attractive, average and attractive smile and buccal corridor
width was measured.
Digital PA cephalograms were transferred on Nemo-tech software for frontal
facial analysis
◦ Intercanine and intermolar widths were measured on upper study model with the
help of a digital calliper
l
Conclusion:
◦ As the amount of buccal corridor display was increased, smiling
images were scored less attractive by the evaluators. The buccal
corridor is not influenced by underlying skeletal hard tissues but
have mild to moderate inverse correlation with the intercanine and
intermolar width
The following conclusions were drawn from the present study-
• Buccal corridor width was found to be least in subjects with attractive smile and maximum in subjects with
least attractive smile irrespective of sex
• Maxillomandibular width (right and left), maxillary width, mandibular width, facial width, and postural
symmetry angle (right and left) on frontal radiographs did not show statistically significant difference in
subjects with least, average and attractive smile and also had a negligible correlation with buccal corridor.
• Buccal corridor had mild to moderate inverse correlation with intercanie and intermolar widths irrespective
of sex.
• Intercanine and intermolar width was found to maximum in subjects with attractive smile and minimum in
subjects with least attractive smile in both the sexes. From these findings, it was concluded that the buccal
corridor is influenced by dental structures and soft tissue structures rather than underlying skeletal structures.