Upper Airway Morphology and Head Posture in Healthy Men and Women

Objective: the aim of our study was to investigatemorphological differences in the upper airway of healthy menand women on lateral cephalometric radiographs.material-method: in our study, we evaluated 76 lateralcephalometric radiographs of adult subjects (38 men and 38women) with class i skeletal pattern taken in natural headposture. in order to determine natural head posture, we usedself-balance position, which was transferred to the cephalostatby means of a fluid level device. all lateral cephalogramswere traced manually. the effect of gender on upper airwaymorphology and natural head posture was evaluated usingstudent’s t-test.results: we found that measurements used in thedetermination of natural head posture were similar for menand women. linear measurements regarding the position ofbony structures (mp-ah, ah-ah1, c3ia-ah, and ba-c3ia),soft tissue (pns-p, mpt, pns-et, tgl, and tgh), tonguearea, soft palate area, and oropharynx area were statisticallysignificant, with respect to gender.conclusions: the hyocervical relation is affected by genderdifferences whereas hyomandibular relation is well balancedin subjects with normal occlusion and class i skeletal patternand was not affected by gender. natural head posture wasnot affected by gender differences. tongue area, soft palatearea, and oropharyx area are larger in men. however, nostatistically significant differences were observed betweengenders for nasopharynx and hypopharyx areas.