[Determination of centric relation. Study of the lateral position of the mandible in relation to the facial median line, using 2 methods of determination].

The authors studied the lateral positional desviations of the mandible, in relation to the facial median line in 30 (thirty) full edentulous patients, with the purpose to verify the influence of the unstrained guided (chinpoint guidance) and deglutition methods for the determination of centric relation. According the results obtained they conclude that the unstrained guided method produced a mandibular lateral desviation with a mean value of the 0.752 mm and in the deglutition method the mean value observed was 1.109 mm. The statistical analysis of the results revealed for the unstrained guided method a proportion of the "points" to the right and left of the median line not statistically significant, while for the deglutition method the difference was statistically significant at a level of 5%.