Determination of Class II and Class III skeletal patterns: receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis on various cephalometric measurements.

Receiver operating characteristic analysis is an excellent method for evaluating and comparing the performance of diagnostic tests. The purpose of this study was to use the receiver operating characteristic analysis to evaluate the diagnostic ability of several cephalometric measurements in determining the presence of Class II and Class III skeletal patterns. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed on 976 cases. Fifteen cephalometric measurements were evaluated. A computer software program ROC ANALYZER was used to tabulate the areas under the curves and to perform the statistical comparison between the curves. The results of this study indicated that the Anteroposterior Dysplasia Indicator had the best diagnostic ability in identifying cases with Class II and Class III skeletal patterns. WITS Appraisal and Overjet were highly effective in diagnosing cases with Class II skeletal pattern. WITS Appraisal, Convexity, AB Plane Angle and Overjet also performed well in diagnosing cases with Class III skeletal pattern.