The aim of this study was to compare three evaluation methods of the space available in the jaw posterior segment: MERRIFIELD's (1978), RICKETTS (1976) and RICHARDSON's (1992); Sixty teleradiographs were laterally taken from the heads of sixty Brazilian leucodermas, with age ranging from 9 to 19 years oId. Ali patients presented Class II malocc1usion, division 1, Which were divided by sex into two groups: 30 male and 30 female. Based on the results of the present study it was conc1uded that there is an evident growth in the jaw posterior segment within the age of 9 to 19 years, with mean values of 10,21mm for the MERRIFIELD's method, 11,21mm for RICHARDSON's and 17,84mm for the RICKETTS method. Generally, independently of the evaluated method, it was verified that females present an earlier growth (12,17mm) than males (8,81mm), between 9 to 12 years old. For the correlation of the evaluated methods, there was no statistically significant difference by t test at the 1% level of significance (p = 0,01). The MERRIFIELD's method (1978) was the easiest to perform.
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