Dental age of children and adolescents with impacted maxillary canines.

INTRODUCTION

It is generally perceived that patients with palatally impacted canines experience a delay in dental development, while patients with buccally impacted canines do not. Nevertheless, there is little scientific data on the subject, and no data at all on Chinese populations. The objectives of this study were, thus, to determine whether patients with impacted canines would demonstrate delayed dental development.

DESIGN

Retrospective radiographic study.

SETTING

Dental hospital.

METHODS

Our study enrolled southern Chinese children and adolescents with unilaterally impacted maxillary canines. A total of 281 panoramic radiographs were available to assess dental age. Demirjian's method was utilized to determine the dental age.

RESULTS

The discrepancy between dental and chronologic ages was then calculated, revealing a mean difference of 0.4 years (± 0.2 years), indicating advanced dental development. The cumulative difference between dental age and chronologic age showed that 42.2% of the patients with a buccally impacted canine and 30% with a palatally impacted canine experienced a delay in dental development, or coincided with their chronologic age.

CONCLUSION

Less than half of the patients with both buccally and palatally impacted canines showed delayed dental development. Their dental maturity was on average slightly but clinically insignificantly advanced.