The prevalence of peg shaped and missing permanent maxillary lateral incisors in Najaf City

الملخص EN

Background : The presence of a missing or peg shaped lateral incisor is a major concern for the subjects facial esthetics.

Objectives : The objectives are to find the prevalence of peg shaped and missing permanent maxillary lateral incisors in Najaf City.

Methodology : A cross sectional study was constructed and composed of 416 Iraqi students (215 males and 201 females) randomly chosen from 3 colleges of Kufa University in Najaf.

Each subject was examined by visual inspection under day light looking for missing or peg shaped permanent maxillary lateral incisors.

Results : The prevalence of missing maxillary lateral incisors was 3.8 % (16 subjects) with an insignificant gender difference.

There were two unilateral missing maxillary lateral incisor and 14 bilateral cases.

Prevalence of peg shaped laterals was 4.3 % (17 subjects) with an insignificant gender difference.

Maxillary median diastema was found in 15.4 % of the sample.

Presence of missing lateral incisors showed a significant relationship with the presence of a maxillary median diastema.

Conclusions : The presence of missing or peg shaped lateral incisors was found to be statistically significantly related to the presence of spacing and the presence of peg shaped lateral incisor showed a non-significant relationship with the presence of a maxillary median diastema.