Prevalence and severity of ectopic maxillary canine impaction in Southern Jordanian population : a radiographic sector analysis

الملخص EN

Objectives : to determine the prevalence of impacted canines and severity of impaction in different age groups using sector analysis in South Jordan population.

Methods : a total of 2700 digital panoramic radiographs with a total of 159 impacted canines were examined during this study and were selected according to specific inclusion criteria.

The age of the patients ranged from 13 to 24 years, with a mean of 18.5 years.

The selected digital panoramic radiographs were examined to determine the overall prevalence of impacted canines and their mesio-distal position of the tip (overlap) in relation to adjacent teeth.

The panoramic radiograph was digitized and each impacted canine was placed in the correct category using sector classification that consists of six categories.

Cases were divided into three age groups from 13-16 years, from 17-20 years and from 21-24 years.

The impacted canine cases in both right and left sides were analyzed according to sector categories and age groups to evaluate the association between right side and left side impaction and age groups.

Data were analyzed using SPSS (v.

17) and statistical significance was set at P<0.05.

Results : the overall prevalence of impacted maxillary canines was 4.37 % (118 cases had impacted canines either unilateral or bilateral).

The overall prevalence in males was 1.3 % and in females 3 % while bilateral impaction comprised 1.5% and unilateral impaction 2.85% of the total sample.

Among the 118 cases 37 cases were males (31.4 %) and 81 cases were females (68.6%), 41 cases (34.7 %) had bilateral impaction and 77 cases (65.3 %) were unilateral.

Overall we had 159 maxillary impacted canines, among them 75 were located on the left side (47.2 %) and 84 on the right side (58.8%).

In both right and left impacted maxillary canine cases the distribution of cases according to sector categories showed that grade zero impaction was the most common one and grade -1 was the least common.

The distribution of cases according to sector categories and age groups showed that the percentage of the mildest impaction (mesio-distally) which corresponds to sector zero was highest in the younger age group 13 – 16 years (52.8 % on right side, 51.9% on left side) and the lowest in the older age group 21-24 years (8.7 % on right side,4.3 % on left side) and the percentage of the most sever impaction which corresponds to sector 4 was lowest in the younger age group (2.9 % on right side, 7.4 % on left side ) and highest in the older age group (34.8 % on right side, 39.1 % on left side ), this was true for both right side and left side impaction and was statistically significant (p<0.05) .

Conclusion: Prevalence of maxillary canine impaction in our study was noticeable and comparable to the findings reported in other populations.

It occurred more frequently in females, with unilateral impaction was more common than bilateral and with a slight preference for the right side.

The mesio-distal position of the canine tip was located more frequently in sectors 0, and half of the canines were located in sectors 2 through 4.

There were statistically significant more mild impaction cases in younger age group while there were more severe impaction cases in older age group.