AAOF Craniofacial Growth Legacy Collection

Welcome!

With support from the American Association of Orthodontists Foundation (AAOF), nine of the eleven known collections of longitudinal craniofacial growth records in the United States and Canada have joined together to create this web site and its underlying numerical database. Our purpose is to make representative materials from the participating collections available for viewing and further investigation by clinicians, craniofacial investigators, students of human growth, and interested members of the public.

These collections represent the work of hundreds of investigators. They have been gathered, cataloged, and studied over a period of more than seventy-five years. The materials they contain are literally irreplaceable. Each of the collections is independent from the others and has pursued its own sampling and data collection strategies. Taken together, these different and complementary strategies have produced a rich longitudinal record of craniofacial development among children who did not receive orthodontic treatment. Available documentation of the growth process in the several collections includes skull x-ray images of various sorts, hand-wrist films, dental radiographs, facial photographs, and study casts as well as written records on the physical and educational development of children of varied ethnicities and growth patterns.

The contributing collections, working individually, have produced most of the information that is available in the contemporary orthodontic literature on longitudinal craniofacial growth in untreated children. Now, by merging data from the several collections, we hope to make possible further collaborative studies that will enrich and refine our knowledge of craniofacial growth in untreated children and adolescents.

During the initial phase of this project which is now nearing completion, we have confined ourselves to the collection of lateral and frontal cephalograms. Presently available on the site are digital images of 2000 lateral cephalograms generated at different ages from over 200 cases gathered from 9 different Collections. Summary statistics on case distribution by sex/gender, age and Angle Class may be found by clicking on “Collection Statistics” in the Information section of the menu on the left side of this page.

This entire site is intended to be viewed as a work in progress, intended to function as a continually developing resource for orthodontic teaching and research. Its primary role is to serve as a repository for longitudinal records of all types with sufficient numerical documentation to facilitate useful search and querying.

Getting Started

You can mouse over the Collection Names in the Collection Highlights box at the right of the page, and see a brief description of each collection. Then just click on the Collection Name to get a more detailed description, plus a link to see the Collection's records. You can also click on a Collection Name in the left menu to jump to the description page.

Clicking on the "Overview of All" left menu item takes you to a page showing Overviews of all the Collections, with links to each Collection's description and records. Clicking on the Collection Name under the "Browse Images" left menu section takes you directly to the Collection's records.

Use of Materials from This Site

In creating and sustaining this site, AAOF and the participating collections seek to make possible the widest use of its unique materials in education and research. To that end, the entire content of the site is made available without cost for on-line use and downloading by all members of the orthodontic community. Other investigators and members of the public may also request permission to download site materials contingent upon agreement by the collection that was the original source of the materials in question. The pixel resolution of the images on the site is considered sufficient for most practical uses and equals or exceeds that at which clinical head film analyses are usually performed on digital images. However, higher resolution versions of selected images may be desired for specialized uses in research and publication. In such cases, interested parties should contact the collection(s) of origin directly, being aware that some the collections may find it necessary to charge for such higher resolution images.

When images obtained from this site are used in presentations or publications, the AAOF and the collection of origin should be cited appropriately.

Collection Highlights

Michigan Growth Subject 02101
Animation of 12 Timepoints Over 12 Years

Landmark Overlays and Locations

3D Study Cast Display

Play the movie to see a demo of rotating a 3D Study Cast. Click on the link above to view and manipulate a 3D Study Cast in your browser - Requires a current browser (Firefox 5+, Chrome, Safari 5+) with WebGL Support