A study on the prevalence of impacted teeth in panoramic radiographs

Introduction: an impacted tooth is a dental anomaly in which a dental piece remains enclosed into the jaw after the normal eruption age is reached, despite it usually keeps the physiology of the pericoronal sac; but it is known to cause some pathological accidents of varying kind and intensity during the tooth’s attempt of eruption. One of the reasons for this anomaly is probably the fact that the jaws of the human species are smaller in size than those of our ancestors, so it is almost impossible for the 32 teeth to be aligned in a harmoniously way. The panoramic radiography is very helpful to diagnose this abnormality, which in many instances may occur with no clinical manifestations.
Objective: the objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of impacted teeth in a population from Buenos Aires city, using the data provided by panoramic radiographic images.
Materials and methods: 1000 radiographs, taken from 3- to 92-year-old patients, were randomly selected. The impacted teeth cases were grouped by age, gender, location, diagnostic presumption and description of the radiographic features. Statistical analysis: the significance level was established by analysis of variance to compare the prevalence by age and gender; this significance was considered at p<0.05.
Results: a total of 334 impacted teeth were found, 180 female and 154 in male; their distributions were as follows: 131 lower third molars, 70 right and 61 left; 107 were upper third molars, 58 right and 49 left; 52 canines were found, 43 upper and 9 lower; 28 premolars, 20 lower and 8 upper. The analysis of variance showed a significant difference between ages at a p<0.000024 level, whereas no difference was found between gender at a p<0.05 level.
Conclusions: In this study, panoramic radiography has been shown to be of great value to detect and confirm the presence of impacted teeth anomalies; also, it has demonstrated to provide reliable parameters in such pathologies, showing its usefulness for assisting dental practice, as well as for characterizing and classifying a population sample in epidemiological terms.
Key words: Prevalence, impacted teeth; panoramic radiography. Subs: “Prof. Erausquin”, FOUBA