Abstract
The present study is a clinical and radiographic investigation of a total of 100 cases of oral trauma involving 175 injured teeth from 94 patients aged from 5 y 0 m to 14 y 7 m who came to our hospital during the period from Dec.1987 to Aug.1994.
There were 67 boys and 33 girls. Eighty percent of the patients were 7-10 years of age. The number of teeth involved in each injury was from one to six, but the majority of the cases involved one tooth (48 cases) or two teeth (40 cases) in each injury. The maxillary central incisors were the most susceptible teeth (74%), followed by the maxillary lateral incisors (11%) and the mandibular central incisors (10%).
Prognosis of 43 cases of luxation injuries, which were able to be followed for at least 6 months, resulted in 3 cases of pulp necrosis.
Splinting was given in 46 cases, of which 5 cases showed external root resorption. There were 3cases of avulsion, one case of extrusion and one case of root fracture.
The incidence of external root resorption was examined in association with tooth mobility at the end of the splinting period. Root resorption was observed even in some cases in which the teeth had been completely fixed, while 12 cases underwent no configurational changes at all around the root surfaces, shown on radiographs, despite a remaining slight tooth mobility at the end of the splinting period and being given no further treatment.
