Objective: To establish cephalometric norms of McNamara's analysis in young Chinese and compare them to those of a matched young Caucasian sample.
Materials and methods: The material comprised lateral cephalometric radiographs of a random sample of 200 male and 205 female 12-year-old southern Chinese children, and an additional sample of 43 male and 43 female 12-year-old British Caucasian children in Hong Kong. The radiographs were digitized twice with the CASSOS program.
Results: The results showed that there were statistically significant gender differences for six out of the 11 cephalometric variables in the Chinese, but for only one variable in the Caucasians. The size of the statistically significant gender differences varied from -0.3 to 0.4 on SD scores. There were statistically significant ethnic differences for eight variables in males and seven variables in females. The size of the observed statistically significant ethnic differences varied from -1.8 to 1.6 on SD scores.
Conclusion: The use of specific standards for Chinese, separate for gender, for McNamara's cephalometric analysis seems to be justified.