The aim of this study was to quantify the presence of cortical and cancellous bone in the mandibular symphysis. A descriptive study was conducted using cone beam computed tomography where skeletal class I and class III subjects were included, defined according to characteristics detected on dental, clinical and dental occlusion x-rays. From the 3D reconstruction, sections were used in relation to the axial axis of the teeth of the anterior sector; the amount of buccal cortical, cortical, lingual, inferior cortical and cancellous bone as well as symphysis height were determined. The measurements were taken using routine methods and analyzed with ANOVA and Tukey’s HSD test with p <0.05 for statistical significance. 20 skeletal class I subjects aged 23 years (± 4.5) and 20 class III subjects aged 22 years (± 5.2) were included. Symphysis height was significantly greater in skeletal class III subjects, exceeding by 0.8 mm the height of class I subjects; the buccal cortical bone presented on average 2 mm less at different dental levels, whereas the lingual cortical and inferior basal bones were significantly larger than the buccal cortical bone. The cancellous and cortical bones did not present any significant differences between the two groups (p=0.093). The buccal and basilar cortical bone is smaller than lingual cortical bone.
