Adolescent Growth Spurt

Variations in the onset and duration of the pubertal growth spurt may affect the final size of different craniofacial structures.9,30 Longitudinal studies have shown that growth changes during adolescent growth spurt are more pronounced in the mandible as compared to the maxilla.9,31,32 The current study reports that the onset of pubertal growth peak occurs around four months earlier in girls as compared to boys but there was no significant difference in the overall duration of the pubertal growth peak between the two genders. A review of literature also shows insignificant differences in the duration of pubertal growth peak between boys and girls.24 Late onset of adolescent growth spurt accompanied by continued post-pubertal increase in mandibular

Armond et al35 evaluated the lateral cephalogram of 391 growing children and showed that the class II subjects are twice more likely to enter the adolescent growth spurt at an earlier age than the class I subjects. On the other hand, some studies27,30 report that the adolescent growth spurt is likely to start later in class III subjects as compared to class I. Conversely, few studies24-26 showed statistically insignificant differences in the timings of onset of pubertal growth peak among three classes. Though this area needs further investigation, the preliminary findings suggest that the variations in the timing of onset of the pubertal growth peak may be related to a variable mandibular morphology in the three skeletal

The assessment of the craniofacial growth asks for a longitudinal study design as an essential method for reliable results. A longitudinal study by Gu and McNamara23 established that CS3 and CS4 stages correlate with the pubertal growth peak. The longitudinal studies require repeated exposure to x-ray radiations that has certain ethical limitations.39 Moreover, few studies report variations in the skeletal and dental maturation may be related to the vertical facial pattern of the individual.40,41 In this context, subjects were matched according to the vertical facial pattern and separate analyses were performed for boys and girls where