Objectives: The literature on craniofacial morphology of elderly has focused on edentulous elderly with few reports on dentate elderly. The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in craniofacial morphology with age in elderly with many remaining teeth. Method: The study included 15 males aged 85.1± 4.1 with 24.8±2.5 present teeth and 15 females aged 85±3.0 with 25.2±2.3 present teeth. They were compared with young adults with normal occlusion; 15 males aged 24.0±1.5 with 29.3±1.5 present teeth and 15 females aged 22.8±0.7 with 28.4±0.8 present teeth. Coben's method of analysis based on linear measurements was used to measure facial heights in the plane perpendicular to the Frankfort Horizontal and facial depths in the plane parallel to the Frankfort Horizontal and to calculate their ratios. The results were compared between the elderly and the young. Unpaired Student's t-test was employed for statistical analysis. Results: Among the anterior face height measurements, Ans-Me/N-Me was larger in the male elderly group (56.9%) than the male young adult group (54.3 %) (p<0.01). The male elderly group also showed a greater L1-Me/N-Me (34.1%) than their counterpart (32.8%) (p<0.05). In females, Ans-Me/N-Me was larger in the elderly (56.0%) than in the young (54.0%) (p<0.05), and N-Ans/N-Me was smaller in the elderly (44.0%) than in the young (46.1%) (p<0.05). These results demonstrated that both the male and female elderly had a longer lower face height. Conclusion: Tooth loss is said to cause a decrease in occlusal vertical dimension, resulting in a senile facial appearance. The elderly with many remaining teeth were shown to be resistant to changes in face height with age. They even had a longer lower face height than the young control group, which may be attributed to downward rotation of the mandible with age.

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