Soft tissue changes following maxillary osteotomy, comparison of three computer programmes
Reviewed by Stuart Clark

This small group of seven patients had a Le Fort I advancement maxillary osteotomy with vertical repositioning and alar base cinch sutures. They were assessed with cone beam CT’s three months preoperatively and one year postoperatively. A clinical comparison between the programmes of Dolphin, ProPlan CMF and Probabilistic Finite Element Modelling was undertaken. They found that PFEM and ProPlan were equally accurate in soft tissue prediction in comparison to Dolphin. They found that Dolphin under-predicts soft tissue movements in the paranasal region whilst predicting changes mainly in the upper lip. In comparison, ProPlan and PFEN show continuous displacement of the upper lip and paranasal regions. Overall, they concluded that all 3D predictions are useful and accurate within 2mm. They do however acknowledge the multiple potential criticisms in this paper ranging from the small group, reference points and differences in the planned and eventual position of the maxilla.

Three-dimensional soft tissue prediction and orthognathic surgery: a clinical comparison of Dolphin ProPlan CMF and probabilistic fine element modelling.
Knoopes PGM, Boghi A, Breakey RWF, et al.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ORAL & MAXILLOFACIAL SURGERY
2019;48(4):511-8.