A cephalometric study of children with chronic perennial allergic rhinitis.

This study compared the cephalometric features of a group of one hundred children aged from six to sixteen years suffering from chronic perennial allergic rhinitis of differing grades of severity with those of 99 control subjects of similar age. Both samples were drawn from a Children's Hospital which has a large population of patients with chronic perennial allergic rhinitis attending the Allergy Clinic. Lateral cephalometric head films of each subject were recorded and a series of measurements made to assess and compare the craniofacial morphology. The data were statistically analysed. The study found that the children suffering from chronic perennial allergic rhinitis had longer and more divergent facial patterns as well as horizontally shorter maxillae than those in the control group. In addition, those parameters associated with increased vertical dimension and hyperdivergence demonstrated progressive expression with increasing severity of the chronic perennial allergic rhinitis.