• Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.103-115
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• 2009

In vertebrates, the face is mainly formed with neural crest derived neural crest cells by the inherent programs and the interactive environmental factors. Extracellular signaling-regulated kinase (Erk) is one of such programs to regulate the various cellular functions. And retinoic acid (RA) also plays an important role as a regulator in differentiation process at various stages of vertebrate embryogenesis. We wanted to know that the segregation as well as the patterning of maxillary and mandibular structure is greatly influenced by the maxillomandibular cleft (MMC) and the failure of this development may result in the maxillomandibular fusion (syngnathia) or other patterning related disorder. It has been well documented that the epithelium at this cleft region has significant expression of Fibroblast growth factor (Fgf) 8, and it is essential for the patterning of the first arch derived structures. By the morphological, skeletal, cell proliferation and apoptotic, and hybridization analysis, we checked the effects of Erk inhibition and/or RA activation onto MMC and could observe that Erk and RA signaling is individually and synergically involved in the facial patterning in terms of FGF signaling pathway via Barx-l. So RA and Erk signaling work together for the MMC patterning and the segregation of maxilla-mandible by controlling the Fgf-related signaling pathways. And the abnormality in MMC brought by aberrant Fgf signaling may result in the disturbances of maxillary-mandibular segregation.

• The korean journal of orthodontics
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• v.30 no.1 s.78
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• pp.115-126
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• 2000

Dental arch expansion is one of the method used to solve the dental crowding problem by non-extraction. Many formulae using tooth size have been suggested to predict ideal inter-premolar and inter-molar width. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the adequacy of some upper dental arch width prediction methods, namely Pont's method, Schmuth's method and Cha's method. The sample consisted of the casts of 119 Korean young adults who had no muscular abnormality, no skeletal discrepancy, and Angle's Class I molar relationships. Measurements were obtained directly from plaster casts; they Included mesiodistal crown diameters of the four maxillary incisors, as well as maxillary inter-first-premolar and inter-first-molar arch widths as specified by Pont. The correlation coefficients between the sum of incisors(SI) and upper dental arch width were calculated. The differences between predicted width and actual width were classified as overestimated, properestimated, and underestimated. The data obtained from each group were analyzed for statistical differences. The results were as follows : 1. Upper dental arch width indices were calculated from SI in normal occlusion (81.96 : premolar index, 62.55 : molar index). 2. Low correlations between SI and arch width were noted in normal occlusion (0.50 in the inter-premolar width, 0.39 in the inter-molar width). 3. Pont's formula and Schmuth's formula tended to overestimate the inter-premolar width. A more even distribution of estimates was noted in Cha's fomula. 4. Cases within $\pm$1 mm range of observed inter-premolar width were $45\%$ in the Cha's formula, $40\%$ in the Pont's formula, and $39\%$ in the Schmuth's formula. 5. All formulae had a tendency to underestimate the inter-molar width, but Cha's formula had better predictability than others. 6. Cases within $\pm$1 mm range of observed inter-molar width were $40\%$ in the Cha's formula, $29\%$ in the Pont's formula, and $13\%$ of Schmuth's formula. The data presented in this study does not support the clinical usefulness of ideal arch width prediction methods using the mesiodistal width of maxillary incisors.