Overview of Radiological Studies on Visualization of Gubernaculum Tracts of Permanent Teeth

Abstract

The eruption pathway from the dental follicle to the gingiva for permanent teeth is known as the gubernaculum tract (GT), a physiologic structure thought to play a role in tooth eruption. Cone beam computed tomography and multi-detector computed tomography have recently been used to visualize the GT, with the results indicating that this structure might be related to the normal eruption of teeth. By contrast, curved and/or constricted GTs may lead to abnormal tooth eruption. In addition, complex odontomas have been reported from within the GT or dental sac of unerupted permanent teeth. If an odontoma occurs within the GT, the tooth will not erupt normally. Moreover, the imaging characteristics of the GT from the top of the odontogenic mass to the alveolar crest are extremely useful for making a differential pathological diagnosis and for differentiating between odontogenic and non-odontogenic masses. Therefore, radiological studies on the GT have been attracting increasing attention. Given this background, the present review aims to clarify the imaging characteristics and review recent studies on the GT considering the importance of the research.

CBCT Assessment of Gubernacular Canals on Permanent Tooth Eruption in Down’s Syndrome

“…Additionally, we had a Ds individuals group in our study for which we evaluated common eruption disturbances (n = 213/338-63%) associated with this syndrome, which had a major influence on our 338 impacted or delayed/unerupted teeth [5,7,19,20]. According to the literature, GC absence or anatomical deformation could be possibly associated with various obstructive odontogenic tumors, such as compound or complex odontomas, mesiodens, or adenomatoid odontogenic tumors, which is demonstrated in our results [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31].…”

“…Through the years, studies demonstrated that GC structures can be visualized on panoramic and dental radiographs, although some diagnoses propose that the two-dimensional characteristics of dental radiographs would make it difficult to visualize or measure some GC aspects such as length, diameter, pathway, deformation, and/or obliteration. Therefore, recent studies introduced CBCT as a justified imaging examination to evaluate GC presence and its possible disturbances such as impacted or delayed/unerupted teeth that will influ-ence clinical pediatric dentistry, orthodontics planning, and oral and maxillofacial surgical treatment due to its specificity in different images [21][22][23].…”

“…Further, among studies that correlated GC detection and its prevalence with age, Oda et al [22] identified that while patients were aging, the GC shape was modifying with chronological age, and according to Oda et al [22], the progression forms of GC defined by authors were sprouting form groove form, imperfect-tubular form, tubular form, and hole form. Unfortunately, in our study, the first limitation we had was that we selected only CBCT images that did not contain abnormal GC shape findings; therefore, no correlation to GC shape could be made [21].…”

Surgical resection after orthodontic eruption: A case report of compound odontoma-induced impacted maxillary right central incisor

“…Histologically, odontomas are often surrounded by thin connective tissue, consistent with the dental follicle [1]. This soft tissue capsule is close to or partially integrated with adjacent dental follicle, as has been frequently noted in radiological examinations, particularly in the widely used cone beam computer tomography [20,21,22]. Thus, we assumed that epithelial cross-linking between the soft tissue capsule of odontoma and the adjacent normal dental follicle may delay or prevent spontaneous tooth eruption.…”

Association between gubernacular canals characteristics and teeth eruption status: a cone-beam computed tomography study

“…( 6 ) on 598 CBCT samples, the authors detected gubernacular canal in 542 (90.6%) cases, which is consistent with the results found in the present study and the review study by Oda et al . ( 20 ).…”