Pediatric nasal resistance and lower anterior vertical face height.

In an effort to determine whether nasal obstruction in the pediatric population influences craniofacial and orthodontic development, nasal resistance data were collected from 211 consecutive orthodontic patients by means of active anterior rhinometry. Age-specific nasal resistance standards had been previously accumulated from an unselected representative sample of 498 youngsters, drawn from socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds similar to those of the orthodontic group. Resistance data collected from 211 orthodontic patients were found to fall in an almost linear arrangement, varying inversely with age. Age-specific nasal resistance mean data were found to be consistently higher than comparable age-specific mean data of the unselected comparative sample. When orthodontic nasal resistance data were compared with cephalometric measurements of anterior lower vertical face height in 60 patients, there was a definitive correlation between elevation in nasal resistance and increased lower vertical face-height measurements.