Evaluation of postoperative patient satisfaction with pharyngeal airway and cephalometric changes after orthognathic surgery in patients with class III skeletal anomaly

Orthognathic surgical procedures are applied in the correction of severe dentofacial anomalies in patients who have completed their growth development. In orthognathic surgery, the movement of skeletal structures significantly affects facial aesthetics and creates changes in soft tissues. Apart from the affected areas such as the nose, upper and lower lips, and the tip of the chin, changes are also seen in the pharyngeal region. Especially after surgical procedures in which the lower jaw is retracted, the changes in the positions of these structures related to the lower and upper jaw can change the respiratory efficiency. In our study, to determine the change in the posterior pharyngeal airway after the treatment of patients with Class III malocclusion treated with single and double jaw orthognathic surgery, to reveal the results of airway measurements with linear and areal parameters on cephalometric films, to determine the changes the hard tissue and soft tissue, hyoid and tongue positions, to evaluate patient satisfaction after surgery. Our research was carried out on a total of 82 cephalometric films taken before and after treatment from patients with skeletal Class III malocclusion who were treated as single jaw (9 patients) and double jaw (32 patients) orthognathic surgery, and 25 cephalometric films from 25 individuals with Class I skeletal morphology. Measurements of the skeletal and dental structures of the individuals on the radiographs, and dimensional and spatial measurements of the soft tissue, hyoid bone, tongue and pharyngeal airway were performed. Pharyngeal airway parameters were measured with the ImageJ software program. As a result of our study, post-operative oropharyngeal and hypopharyngeal airway narrowing occurred in patients with skeletal Class III malocclusion who had been treated with double jaw and single jaw orthognathic surgery, and the tongue was located more posterosuperiorly in both groups. Despite the narrowings detected, high satisfaction scores were observed in the patient satisfaction questionnaire and it was observed that the patients did not experience respiratory problems. Keywords: Orthognathic surgery, Patient satisfaction, Class III malocclusion, Pharyngeal Airway