Assessment of Visualized Treatment Objective and Post-Treatment Outcome in Skeletal Class II Functional Cases: A Comparative Study

Objective: Predicting facial growth would be of great benefit in planning orthodontic treatment. Successful prediction requires specifying growth's magnitude, timing, and direction in a baseline or reference point context. This study aimed to analyze the accuracy of visual treatment objectives in predicting the treatment outcome for patients who had undergone Class II functional therapy. The objectives included comparing clinical and Dolphin visual treatment objectives to the post-treatment profile changes and predicting skeletal, dental, and soft tissue response.

Methods: Pre-treatment and post-treatment photographs were utilized, including clinical VTO and Lateral cephalogram. The pre-treatment cephalogram and profile photographs were used to construct the Dolphin VTO image. The Dolphin VTO analysis was then compared with the post-treatment digitized cephalogram analysis to determine the accuracy of the VTO by comparing predetermined points on the VTO to the same points on the post-treatment cephalogram tracing.

Results: The Dolphin simulation software accurately predicted treatment outcomes for skeletal parameters except for lower anterior facial height. For dental parameters, the software inaccurately predicted the treatment outcomes for upper incisor proclination. Simulation software inaccurately predicted the H angle, LL to E line, and LL to H Line for soft tissue parameters.

Conclusion: The outcome of this study concluded that the skeletal, dental, and soft tissue prediction was acceptable using the Dolphin visual treatment objective prediction software.