Craniofacial morphology and its relation to the eruption pattern of permanent teeth in the supporting zone of the dentition in a group of Romanian children in Timişoara.

The purpose of this study is to determine the cephalic and facial morphological typology in prepubertal children from Timişoara (Romania) and to develop a population-specific reference for the dental eruption of permanent teeth in the supporting zone of the dentition, in relation to the facial morphological typology. Using cephalic and facial indexes in a group of 234 preadolescents with mixed dentition, we quantified morphological associations between cephalic and facial types, using a cross-sectional design. The prepubertal children in Timişoara have a dominant mesoprosopic facial type and mesocephalic type. For supporting zone of the dentition, the presence of permanent teeth, the canine, the first premolar and the second premolar was recorded, for all four quadrants. Dental eruption in the supporting zone of the dentition has particularities depending on population group, gender, dental arch, but also facial type. From the data of this study, the following patterns of eruption, specific to each facial type, have resulted: for leptoprosopic facial type - first upper premolar (UP1), second upper premolar (UP2), upper canine (UC)∕first lower premolar (LP1), lower canine (LC), second lower premolar (LP2); for mesoprosopic facial type - UP1, UP2, UC∕LC, LP1, LP2; and for euryprosopic facial type - UP1, UP2, UC∕LC, LP1, LP2. The leptoprosopic and euryprosopic facial types have a delayed and accelerated eruption compared to the mesoprosopic facial type. The euryprosopic facial type has more intense mandibular eruption. The leptoprosopic facial type registers the largest percentage of children requiring orthodontic treatment. Monitoring the sequence of eruption of the permanent teeth is very important to ensure the balanced development of the dental occlusion, mandible and facies as a whole.