The aim of this study was to establish a new cephalometric parameter, named the Dhaval—Rohan angle (DR), to assess the vertical skeletal patterns on a lateral cephalogram with accuracy and reproducibility.

One hundred and twenty pretreatment lateral cephalograms of the patients visiting the department of orthodontics and dentofacial orthopedics for treatment were obtained and divided into three groups. i.e., horizontal growth pattern, average growth pattern, and vertical growth pattern cases based on the routinely used cephalometric parameters; FMA, SN-GoGn, Y-axis angle and Jarabak ratio. This angle uses three skeletal landmarks, the point C (center of the condyle), point M (midpoint of premaxilla), and point G (center of the largest circle that is tangent to the internal inferior, anterior, and posterior surfaces of the mandibular symphysis).

The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test showed that the three groups studied were not the same for DR angle and the post hoc Tukey test found the groups to be significantly different. According to the Student's t-test, there was no statistically significant difference in mean values of DR angle between males and females.

Cephalometric evaluation of young adults shows that the DR angle below 28.5° indicates a horizontal growth pattern, between 28.5 and 32.5° indicate an average growth pattern and above 32.5° indicate a vertical growth pattern.

Lekhadia DR, Rai R, Hegde N, Hegde G, Sorake A, Kumar A. Assessment of Vertical Skeletal Patterns using a New Cephalometric Parameter: The Dhaval—Rohan Angle. J Postgrad Med Edu Res 2017;51(1):7-11.