Tooth agenesis patterns in Japanese orthodontic patients with nonsyndromic oligodontia.

INTRODUCTION

Tooth agenesis is the most common dental anomaly in humans and is often found in orthodontic patients. However, severe tooth agenesis (oligodontia) is rare and its characteristics are poorly understood. This study aimed to investigate tooth agenesis patterns of Japanese orthodontic patients with nonsyndromic oligodontia.

METHODS

Panoramic radiographs of 228 orthodontic patients (141 females, 87 males) with nonsyndromic oligodontia were selected and permanent tooth agenesis excluding third molars was evaluated. Influence of cutoff age was tested, tooth agenesis patterns for each quadrant were calculated, and antagonistic maxillary and mandibular quadrants were merged as the occluding tooth agenesis pattern. Full-mouth tooth agenesis patterns were also evaluated.

RESULTS

The highest prevalence of tooth agenesis was observed in maxillary and mandibular second premolars, followed by maxillary first premolars. Prevalence of a symmetric pattern between right and left quadrants was significantly higher than matched patterns between maxillary and mandibular antagonistic quadrants. Among 456 possible tooth agenesis patterns, 51 and 49 patterns were observed for the maxillary and mandibular quadrants, respectively, but 215 patterns for the occluding patterns were observed. In addition, 180 full-mouth tooth agenesis patterns were observed in the 228 patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Distinct characteristics in highly ranked patterns were observed compared with studies from other geographic areas, especially in the maxillary arch. Occluding and full-mouth tooth agenesis patterns showed wide variation, suggesting difficulty in orthodontic diagnosis.