Horizontal Angular Asymmetry of the Face in Korean Young Adults With Reference to the Eye and Mouth

Song, Wu-Chul; Koh, Ki-Seok; Kim, Sang-Hyun; Hu, Kyung-Seok; Kim, Hee-Jin; Park, Jung-Cheol; Choi, Byoung-Young

doi:10.1016/j.joms.2006.11.018

« Previous Next »Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
Volume 65, Issue 11 , Pages 2164-2168, November 2007

Horizontal Angular Asymmetry of the Face in Korean Young Adults With Reference to the Eye and Mouth

Wu-Chul Song, MD
- Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy, College of Medicine, Konkuk University, Chungju, Korea.
Ki-Seok Koh, PhD
- Professor, Department of Anatomy, College of Medicine, Konkuk University, Chungju, Korea.
Sang-Hyun Kim, BS
- Assistant, Department of Anatomy, College of Medicine, Konkuk University, Chungju, Korea.
Kyung-Seok Hu, DDS
- Assistant Professor, Division in Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Department of Oral Biology, College of Dentistry, Oral Science Research Center, Human Identification Research Center, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
Hee-Jin Kim, DDS, PhD
- Associate Professor, Division in Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Department of Oral Biology, College of Dentistry, Oral Science Research Center, Human Identification Research Center, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
Jung-Cheol Park, PhD
- Assistant, Department of Anatomy, Wonju College of Medicine, Yonsei University, Wonju, Korea.
Byoung-Young Choi, MD, PhD
- Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy, Wonju College of Medicine, Yonsei University, Wonju, Korea.
- Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr Choi: Department of Anatomy, Wonju College of Medicine, Yonsei University, 162 Ilsan-dong, Wonju, 220-701, Korea

Purpose

Organs and structures develop symmetrically, but various degrees of asymmetry can also develop because of the effects of function and disease. The human face is often asymmetrical, but faces can be perceived as beautiful even if they are asymmetrical. The purpose of the present study was to investigate horizontal angular asymmetry of the face.

Materials and Methods

The angle between the horizontal line through the bilateral exocanthions and the line though the bilateral mouth corners of the face was measured on standardized frontal facial photographs of 1,282 volunteers (18 to 29 years of age; 761 males, 521 females).

Results

The magnitude of the angle was 0.2 ± 1.4 and 0.3 ± 1.3 degrees (mean ± SD) in males and females, respectively. Faces were classified into 3 types relative to the parallel type. The incidence of the parallel type, the right-dominant type (≥1 degree), and the left-dominant type (≤1 degree) was 54.7%, 28.6%, and 16.7%, respectively. The right-dominant type was observed more frequently than the left-dominant type in both genders.

Conclusion

Our findings concur with those of previous studies of facial asymmetry and suggest that measurement of horizontal angulations of frontal photographs of faces can be used to assess facial asymmetry.