The location of the mental foramen in relation to the biometrics of the lower dentition and mandibular arch: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the position of the mental foramen among Malaysian Malays and Chinese based on the biometrics of the lower dentition and mandibular arch dimensions. 
 Materials and methods: The horizontal and vertical position of mental foramen in relation to the midline, roots of teeth, mesiodistal dimension of the anterior and posterior teeth, and the mandibular arch length and width were measured and evaluated in 65 Cone-Beam Computed Tomography scans. 
 Results: The location of mental foramen was predominantly located either between 1st and 2nd premolar or below 2nd premolar. There were no significant differences for all measurements of the mandible in relation to gender and ethnicities. There was a positive correlation of the mesiodistal diameter of the teeth with the mandibular arch length and width. However, mandibular arch length and width did not affect the location of the mental foramen. 
 Conclusions: As the size of the teeth increases, the mandibular arch length and the width increase concurrently. However, regardless of the changes in the biometrics of the mandibular dentition and the arch dimensions, the anatomical position of the mental foramen remains the same. The mental foramen was located at the ratio of 0.5 vertically and 0.27 horizontally in the mandible. The inter-foramina distance of 51.36 mm suggests that Malaysian Mongoloids had sufficient space to receive five implants rigidly joined with a bar.

Quantifications of Mandibular Trabecular Bone Microstructure Using Cone Beam Computed Tomography for Age Estimation: A Preliminary Study

“…However, after the emergence of micro-computed tomography (µCT), and the quantification of trabecular architecture by µCT yielded promising results, and its ability to attain resolutions up to 0.5 µm, it is currently tagged as a non-destructive gold standard [ 21 ]. Previous studies have validated CBCT to be used as an assessment tool to quantify trabecular microarchitecture [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]. The studies suggested that morphometric assessments by most CBCT machines and high-resolution multi-scanner computed tomography (MSCT) are reliable, though they over-estimated the trabecular microarchitecture the alveolar network remained the same between them and the reference gold standard (µCT) [ 27 ].…”