Objective: To quantify the amount of perioral tissue changes following the extraction of four premolars in patients with bimaxillary protrusion who had nearly completed active growth.
Materials and methods: A literature search was conducted to identify clinical trials that assessed cephalometric perioral soft tissue changes in patients affected by biprotrusion and treated with extractions. Electronic databases (PubMed, ISI WoS Science Citation Index Expanded, and HubMed) were searched. Abstracts that appeared to fulfill the initial selection criteria were selected, and the full-text original articles were retrieved and analyzed. Only articles that fulfilled the final selection criteria were finally considered. Their references were also hand-searched for possible missing articles from the database searches.
Results: Nine abstracts met the initial inclusion criteria and these articles were retrieved. From these, five were later rejected mostly because the sample dealt with growing subjects. Four articles remained and they showed that the upper and lower lips retracted and the nasolabial angle increased following premolar extraction. Upper lip retraction ranged from 2 mm to 3.2 mm, lower lip retraction ranged from 2 mm to 4.5 mm.
Conclusions: The lip procumbency improves following the extraction of four premolars and this improvement is predictable. However, the changes are small and do not dramatically modify the profile. A "dished in" profile is not to be expected. Individual variation in response is large.