Existence of golden proportion in maxillary anterior teeth of University of Malaya dental students

Purpose of the study: The objective of this study was to investigate the existence of the golden proportion between the width of the maxillary anterior teeth of undergraduate dental students at University of Malaya. Materials and method: Standardised photographs of 100 dental students? smiles displaying only the lips and the teeth were captured. The images were transferred to a personal computer and the width of the maxillary anterior teeth was measured using an Image Analyzer (Leiqa QWin). Calculations were made according to the Theory of Golden Proportion. The data were statistically analysed using paired student T-test (?<0.05) Results: There was a statistically significant difference between the width of the right lateral incisors and 62% of the width of the right central incisors (only 19% subjects had their right lateral incisors in golden proportion with the width of their right central incisors, M=12.5%, F=20.3%, p=0.00). A significant difference also existed between the width of the right canines and 62% of the width of the right lateral incisors (only 17% of the subjects had the width of their canines in golden proportion with the width of their right lateral incisors, M=23.1%, F=12.2%, p=0.00). Conclusions: A significant difference existed between the right lateral incisors and 62% of the right central incisors, and between the right canines and 62% of the right lateral incisors in both male and female subjects. Mean maxillary anterior tooth proportion among the dental students were 0.70 for laterals to central incisors and 0.82 for canines to lateral incisors. The golden proportion is not a suitable method to relate the maxillary anterior tooth proportions in these Malaysian subjects.