An Epidemiologic Survey on Congenitally Missing Teeth of Children who Visited the Department of Pediatric Dentistry of Osaka Dental University Hospital

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to estimate the frequencies of congenitally missing teeth in the deciduous and permanent dentition in children who visited the Department of Pediatric dentistry of the Osaka Dental University Hospital and to elucidate the relationship between the missing of deciduous teeth and succedaneous teeth in the same patients.
Data were collected from longitudinal orthopantomograms and dental X-ray photographs obtained from the above sample.
The results were as follows:
The frequency of the children with missing permanent teeth was 1.35% and of those with missing deciduous teeth 0.12%.
No statistically significant differences were seen in the frequency of the missing permanent and deciduous teeth among the sexes in the upper and lower jaws and, on the right and left sides.
The children had an average of 8.0 missing teeth in the deciduous dentition and 4.3 missing teeth regarding the permanent dentition. No statistically significant differences could be observed between the sexes regarding the permanent dentition, but a significant difference could be observed regarding the deciduous dentition.
The missing of the deciduous teeth resulted in a 79% absence of succedaneous teeth. These facts also indicated a 21% incidence in which the succedaneous dentition occurred despite the congenital missing of deciduous teeth. The most frequent absence was observed in the upper deciduous incisor.