Evaluation of recurring esthetic dental proportion in natural dentition with an esthetic smile

Background: Several proportions like golden proportion, golden percentage, Preston's proportion, recurring esthetic dental proportion have been described in the literature for smile designing procedures. The recurring esthetic dental proportion has been identified to be an important proportion for accomplishing esthetics and harmony in smile designing. Aims:: To determine the existence of recurring esthetic dental proportion in the natural dentition of Malaysian students with a natural smile and to compare these proportions among different ethnic groups in Malaysia: Malay, Chinese and Indian. Study design: Cross-sectional study Methods: The study included one hundred dental and medical students. The digital camera was used to take photographs of the subjects and were analyzed using adobe photoshop CS4 software. The measuring tool provided by the software was used to calculate the width of maxillary central incisors, lateral incisors, and canines. Average width ratio of maxillary lateral incisor to central incisor and maxillary canine to lateral incisor were later determined to check the existence of recurring esthetic dental proportion in natural dentition. Results: Data was statistical analyzed (descriptive statistics and t-test, the level of significance were set at P<0.01). Constant values of the recurring esthetic dental proportion were not found. Conclusion: The natural dentition of Malaysian students did not show the recurring esthetic dental proportion in this study.