[Is it necessary to treat incisal protrusion in Tunisian children?].

It is thought that incisor protrusion could be ethnic-related because Tunisians, as Africans, might reflect the genetic influence of the incisal protrusion of their darker skinned neighbors. We first compiled local standards by determining the normal incisor positions of children of the Sfax region with balanced facial patterns. We selected 95 teenagers from 5 different high schools in Sfax (average age: 16 years 9 months), all having a normal dentition and a balanced facial pattern. This first study showed that upper and lower incisors were protruded 3 mm beyond American standards. Second, we studied incisor stability after four-first bicuspid extraction treatment. We selected 26 patients all having Class I molar relationships and upper and lower incisor protrusion. We compared x-ray incisor measurements of 3 radiographs: before treatment, after treatment and 2 or 3 years post-treatment. This study shows that incisor relapse ranges between 20 and 30%.