The Association between Nasal Septum Deviation and Sagittal Maxillary Growth Discrepancy

ABSTRACT Objective To test the hypothesis that there is no association between the nasal septum deviation and the sagittal growth discrepancy of maxilla. Materials and methods Total 80 subjects in the age range of 7 to 51 years were divided into four groups of 20 each. Group I included subjects with normally positioned maxilla, group II included subjects with protruded maxilla, and group III included subjects with retruded maxilla in relation to the anterior cranial base. Subjects who already had a deviated nasal septum were included in group IV. All the subjects were clinically examined for the evaluation of nasal septum deviation. The deviation of nasal septum was categorized into anterior and posterior deviation. The sagittal maxillary growth discrepancy in all subjects was evaluated from lateral cephalograms. The association between the deviation of nasal septum and the discrepancy of maxillary growth in the sagittal plane was tested by Chi-square test. Results Deviated nasal septum was more common among subjects with normal and retruded maxilla than subjects with protruded maxilla. Subjects in whom nasal septum was already deviated, various sagittal maxillary growth discrepancies were equally distributed. There was no association between the nasal septum deviation and sagittal growth discrepancy of the maxilla (χ2 = 2.143 and p = 0.342). Conclusion There was no association between nasal septum deviation and the sagittal growth discrepancy of the maxilla. How to cite this article Bansal A, Utreja AK, Singh SP, Panda NK, Jena AK. The Association between Nasal Septum Deviation and Sagittal Maxillary Growth Discrepancy. J Postgrad Med Edu Res 2012;46(2):98-101.