A Statistical Study of 36 cases on the Effect of Korean Medicine Treatment including TBT on Facial Asymmetry Correction

Jeongmin Shin; Junghun Shin; Shin, Jeongmin; Shin, Junghun

doi:10.13048/jkm.25012

JKM > Volume 46(1); 2025 > Article

Shin and Shin: A Statistical Study of 36 cases on the Effect of Korean Medicine Treatment including TBT on Facial Asymmetry Correction

Case Report

The Journal of Korean Medicine 2025; 46(1): 167-180.

Published online: March 01, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13048/jkm.25012

A Statistical Study of 36 cases on the Effect of Korean Medicine Treatment including TBT on Facial Asymmetry Correction

Jeongmin Shin¹^{, *}

, Junghun Shin²

¹Ulfit Korean Medicine Clinic

²Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information

Correspondence to: Jeongmin Shin, Charmjin building, Nonhyeon-ro 85Road 43, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of korea, Tel: +82-2-538-7712, Fax: +82-2-538-4478, E-mail: hiranya5382@gmail.com

Received December 31, 2024 Revised February 21, 2025 Accepted February 21, 2025

Abstract

Objectives

The aim of this study is to analyze data from 36 cases of combined Korean medicine treatment, including TBT to evaluate its effectiveness in correcting facial asymmetry.

Methods

Using the initial charts, DSLR photographs, and cranial X-ray images of 36 patients who received facial asymmetry correction treatment, changes in angles along the midline and horizontal plane, as well as differences in the ratio of left and right jaw lengths, were measured and analyzed. Improvement rates were calculated for each factor, and a paired sample t-test was used to determine the statistical significance of pre- and post-treatment differences.

Results

The changes in angles measured in the soft tissue analysis showed statistically significant improvements according to the t-test (p < 0.05). Similarly, cephalometric analysis also demonstrated statistically significant improvements (p < 0.05). The highest correction rate was observed in the angle formed by the line drawn vertically from the clavicle midline and the line connecting the clavicle midline to the center of the glabella, with an improvement of 74.74 ± 21.15%. The correction rate for the ratio of the line connecting the ends of both rami from the midline (LL/RL) was the third highest at 60.42 ± 37.08%, but this change was not statistically significant in the t-test.

Conclusion

This study suggests that non-surgical Korean medicine treatments, such as TBT, may have a statistically significant effect on correcting facial asymmetry.

Keywords: Facial asymmetry, FCST, TBT, TMJ Balancing Therapy, TBM, TMJ Balancing Medicine

(1)

C o r r e c t i o n R a t e (%) = \frac{{P a r a m e t e r}_{b e f o r e} - {P a r a m e t e r}_{a f t e r}}{{P a r a m e t e r}_{b e f o r e}} \times 100

(2)

{C o r r e c t i o n R a t e}_{L L / R L} (%) = \frac{| 1 - {P a r a m e t e r}_{b e f o r e} | - | 1 - {P a r a m e t e r}_{a f t e r} |}{| 1 - {P a r a m e t e r}_{b e f o r e} |} \times 100

Fig. 1

A set of TBT - a) Customized balancing appliance, b) Intraoral balancing appliance, c) CST pillow, d) Pelvic balancer, e) Spinal balancer

Fig. 2

Photography Before-After analysis - a) Before and b) After treatments (taken from ref. [8])

Fig. 3

Chephalography analysis (taken from ref. [8])

Fig. 4

Correction Rate (Boxplot)

Table 1

Definitions of symbols

1	AC	Angle between line A and line C in Fig. 2
2	BC	Angle between line B and line C in Fig. 2
3	Dhor	Angle between D and horizon in Fig. 2
4	Ehor	Angle between E and horizon in Fig. 2
5	VM	Angle between line V and line M in Fig. 3
6	FH	Angle between line F and line H in Fig. 3
7	LL/RL	Length ratio of line LL and line RL shown in Fig. 3
8	_bef	Before treatment
9	_aft	After treatment
10	_cor	Correction rate
11	SD	Standard deviation
12	TMJ	Temporomandibular joint disorder

Table 2

Demographic information

		Sample Size	Ratio (%)	Mean age (mean±SD)	No. of treatments (mean±SD)
Sex	Male	11	30.6	28.5 ±8.93	30.5±13.4
Sex	Female	25	69.4	30.4±9.12	31.6±13.2

Age	10s	4	11.1	-	33.5±20.9
	20s	16	44.5	-	34.6±14.1
	30s	9	25	-	24.2±7.5
	40s	7	19.4	-	31.7±10.2
	Over 50	0	0	-	-

Table 3

Changes of parameters and t-test results

		Photograph				X-ray
		AC	BC	Dhor	Ehor	VM	FH	LL/RL
Measured value (mean±SD)	before	3.129±1.453	2.475±1.575	2.756±1.025	2.952±1.466	3.724±1.421	3.073±1.787	0.916±0.169
Measured value (mean±SD)	after	0.868±0.889	1.175±1.059	1.257±0.891	1.503±1.104	1.407±0.799	1.317±1.118	0.963±0.056
t-test (p-value)		1.164x 10⁻¹⁴	1.061x 10⁻⁷	4.459x 10⁻⁹	4.885x 10⁻⁹	7.964x 10⁻¹³	1.607x 10⁻⁸	0.0549

Table 4

Correction rates of parameters

	AC_cor	BC_cor	Dhor_cor	Ehor_cor	VM_cor	FH_cor	LL/RL_cor
count	36.000000	36.000000	36.000000	36.000000	36.000000	36.000000	36.000000
mean	74.735491	54.879715	49.082284	45.410749	60.780406	55.911676	60.420758
SD	21.153852	32.488588	34.815346	36.583156	20.326416	29.023573	37.078061
minimum	30.555556	0.000000	−33.333333	−50.000000	28.348910	0.000000	−100.000000
25%	56.198103	28.863636	22.553191	20.647482	43.577262	37.500000	48.611111
50%	79.445187	59.831255	56.664165	50.103734	57.388996	58.158876	69.047619
75%	95.555556	91.273421	73.685769	72.595737	74.363269	77.898551	83.102767
maximum	98.214286	96.825397	96.774194	96.138996	100.000000	95.260664	100.00000

Table 5

TMD symptom changes

Symptom	Abbreviation	No of people with symptoms
Jaw pain when opening mouth	TMJ 1	13
Stiff jaw joint when waking up	TMJ 2	11
Jaw and face pain	TMJ 3	18
Jaw clicking	TMJ 4	26
Difficulty opening one’s mouth	TMJ 5	12
Frequent jaw dislocation	TMJ 6	8
Numbness around the jaw	TMJ 7	8
Bruxism	TMJ 8	11
Headache	TMJ 9	23
Back neck pain	TMJ 10	29
Shoulder pain	TMJ 11	22

Table 6

Changes of Likert scores and Wilcoxon signed-ranked test results

		Symptoms (Abbreviations in Table 5)
		TMJ1	TMJ2	TMJ3	TMJ4	TMJ5	TMJ6	TMJ7	TMJ8	TMJ9	TMJ10	TMJ11
Mean ±SD	before	0.833± 1.463	1.833±1.577	0.639±1.175	0.611±1.271	0.472±1.055	1.500±1.595	0.806±1.283	0.722±1.344	1.028±1.253	2.444±1.796	1.833±1.780
Mean ±SD	after	0.111±0.319	0.361±0.639	0.111±0.319	0.056±0.232	0.111±0.523	1.317±1.118	0.361±0.593	0.111±0.319	0.222±0.422	0.694±0.920	0.361±0.723
Wilcoxon test (pvalue)		3.03x 10⁻³	1.51x 10⁻⁵	6.91x 10⁻³	1.09x 10⁻²	1.67x 10⁻²	1.74x 10⁻⁴	1.98x 10⁻³	4.46x 10⁻³	2.90x 10⁻⁴	1.75x 10⁻⁵	6.84x 10⁻⁵

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