Lay Person’s Perception of Interdental Black Triangle Between Maxillary Central Incisors in the Local Population

Adeel Iftikhar; Arfan Ul Haq; Nayha Enver; Fasila Rashid; Shoaib Ahmad; Muhammad Zahid Majeed

Lay Person’s Perception of Interdental Black Triangle Between Maxillary Central Incisors in the Local Population

Authors

Adeel Iftikhar BDS, Ex Postgraduate Trainee Orthodontics, de’Montmorency College of dentistry, Lahore. Demonstrator, Orthodontics Department, Faryal Dental College.
Arfan Ul Haq BDS, MDS, FCPS (Orthodontics), MCPS (Operative Dentistry), Professor Orthodontics Department, de’Montmorency College of Dentistry, Lahore, Pakistan.
Nayha Enver BDS, FCPS Orthodontics, Demonstrator, Orthodontics Department, de’Montmorency College of Dentistry, Lahore, Pakistan.
Fasila Rashid BDS, Ex-Postgraduate Trainee, Orthodontics Department, de’Montmorency College of Dentistry, Lahore, Pakistan.
Shoaib Ahmad BDS, Ex-Postgraduate Trainee, Orthodontics Department, de’Montmorency College of Dentistry, Lahore, Pakistan.
Muhammad Zahid Majeed BDS, MDS, Orthodontic Department, Shahida Islam Medical and Dental College, Lahore, Pakistan. Ex-Postgraduate Trainee, Orthodontics Department, de’Montmorency College of Dentistry, Lahore, Pakistan.

Keywords:

Esthetic, Perception, Black Triangles

Abstract

Introduction: Smile esthetics are key component of general facial esthetics and thus require constant updating keeping in view of current trends and population preferences. Several components can affect smile esthetics and they should be in perfect harmony to obtain an esthetically pleasing smile such as tooth color, shape, size, position, smile arc, black triangles, gingival show, facio-dental midlines, incisor width/height ratio, the inclination of incisors, incisal edge discrepancy, overbite, occlusal plane and many others. The objective was to evaluate lay person’s perception of interdental black triangle between maxillary central incisors in the local population.

Materials and Methods: 150 patients from OPD of Punjab Dental Hospital, Lahore were included in the study. 8 images were modified with the help of software and patients were asked to score these images on visual analogue score.

Results: Mean age and standard deviation of a sample size n=150 patients was 40.53 ± 15.23 years. Males were 44.7%, while females were 55.3%. Image A-F had progressive increase in the size of black triangles and results showed that increasing the size of black triangle leads to decrease mean attractive score for that image.

Conclusions: Out of 150 participants, images without black triangles were perceived as more esthetic and images with largest black triangles (3.5mm) were perceived as least esthetic.