Ashraf I. Shaweesh

Timing and sequence of emergence of deciduous teeth in Jordanian children

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to provide the timing and sequence of deciduous tooth emergence in a sample of Jordanian children. DESIGN A total of 1988 (885 female and 1103 male) children aged from 1 to 45 months recruited from nursery schools and child and maternity health centres in the northern, middle and southern regions of Jordan underwent a dental examination for the detection of deciduous tooth emergence. Children were categorized into 15 3-month-apart age groups. Using Probit regression (SPSS version 16), the median age of emergence per tooth was calculated for the total sample and for both genders. RESULTS The period for acquiring deciduous dentition in the total sample ranged from 8.2 to 27.5 months. In either of the maxillary and mandibular arches, deciduous dentition emerged in the following order: central incisor, lateral incisor, first molar, canine and second molar. In addition, there were insignificant differences across side and there was a significant mandibular precedence of the central incisor although the maxillary precedence in the rest of the teeth was insignificant. Moreover, teeth emerged earlier in females although none of the inter-gender differences were significant. CONCLUSIONS The first standards of the timing and sequence of deciduous tooth emergence specific to the Jordanian population were provided. These standards will be used along with the previously published standards of permanent tooth emergence to aid managing patients in paediatric dentistry and orthodontics and will find applications in forensic and police sciences and in anthropological research.

Polymorphisms in sequence of permanent tooth emergence: a cross-sectional study on Jordanian children and adolescents

OBJECTIVE This study aimed at providing the norms of polymorphic gender- variation in the sequence of permanent tooth emergence in Jordanian children and adolescents. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 2650 Jordanian children and adolescents (1232 males and 1418 females) aged 4-16 years were examined for permanent tooth emergence. By counting the cases of present-absent and absent-present across all possible intra-arch tooth pairs, the frequencies of sequence polymorphisms were calculated and expressed as percentages in and arch-specific matrices. RESULTS Sequence polymorphisms were more common in tooth pairs in phase II than in phase I of permanent tooth emergence and only rarely did teeth in phase I reverse sequence with teeth in phase II. In addition, maxillary and mandibular polymorphisms were most common in the sequences of canine-second premolar and first premolar-canine, respectively. Furthermore, central incisor-first molar and second molar-second premolar sequences were much more common in the mandible than in the maxilla. It was noticed that males and females had more similar frequencies of polymorphic sequences in the maxillary than in the mandibular tooth pairs. CONCLUSIONS This study presented the norms of pairwise sequence polymorphisms in permanent tooth emergence in the Jordanians. Such norms are adequately useful for the evaluation and prediction of tooth emergence sequence in individual children and valuable in the assessment of emergence sequence problems in pediatric dentistry and in planning and following-up orthodontic treatment.

The relationship between body mass index and periodontitis among postmenopausal women

BACKGROUND Periodontitis and overweight/obesity prevalence are both increasing worldwide. Overweight/obesity has been suggested as a risk factor for developing periodontitis. The aim of this study was to determine the association between obesity and periodontitis among postmenopausal Jordanian women. MATERIAL AND METHODS Cross-sectional associations between obesity and periodontitis were examined in 400 postmenopausal women aged 50-79 years. All women completed a questionnaire, had a clinical periodontal examination and had their weight and height recorded. Multivariable analysis was carried out using logistic regression with adjustment for possible confounders. RESULTS Based on body mass index (BMI), 23.5% of the women were considered overweight and 70% were obese. Obese participants with BMI≥25 had decreased odds (OR) for having periodontitis compared to participants with normal weight (OR: 0.54; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.27-0.87). The obese patients showed significantly higher loss of clinical attachment (CAL), calculus, as well as plaque and gingival index and as compared to normal and overweight (p<0.01). The extent of periodontal disease was also significantly higher in obese women as measured by average percent of sites with the deepest CAL≥5 mm (p=0.025). There was no significant difference in mean and percentage of sites with alveolar crestal bone loss (ACH) among different categories of obesity. In conclusion, BMI may be inversely associated with prevalence of periodontitis but positively related to the severity of periodontitis assessed by several periodontal parameters such as CAL, recession, plaque, and calculus. Additional prospective studies to further quantify, or understand the mechanisms, of this association are merited.

Studying the relationships between the outlines of the face, maxillary central incisor, and maxillary arch in Jordanian adults by using Fourier analysis

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The outline shapes of the dental arch, face, and tooth are esthetic factors used to determine the proper form of artificial teeth when selected for artificial prostheses. PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to investigate the quantitative relationships between the outlines of the face, the maxillary central incisor, and the maxillary arch by using Fourier analysis. MATERIAL AND METHODS Frontal facial photographs and irreversible hydrocolloid impressions of the maxilla were obtained from 200 young, dentate individuals (100 men, 100 women) ages 22 to 28 years. On the resultant casts, standardized photographs were made for the dental arch and the maxillary central incisor. The outlines of the face, dental arch, and tooth were digitally traced and the digitized curved outlines were converted into X-Y coordinates with special software, which, in turn, were imported into Fourier Shape Descriptor software for harmonic analysis. The quantitative outputs of Fourier analyses were analyzed and tested with statistical software to investigate the differences across the shapes of the 3 outlines under study. RESULTS Facial and tooth outlines were similar for each sex, although the similarity was stronger among the men. By contrast, no relationship was found between tooth and maxillary arch outlines or between face and maxillary arch outlines. CONCLUSIONS Face and tooth forms were quantitatively related. Therefore, face form may reliably guide the selection of artificial anterior tooth form in complete denture prostheses or any complex anterior restorations.

Clinical duration of eruption of deciduous teeth in Jordanian children: A cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical duration of eruption (CDE) for deciduous teeth in Jordanian children, from the moment of gingival emergence until functional occlusal contact. DESIGN This cross-sectional study included 1988 children (885 females, 1103 males) aged 1-45 months examined for deciduous tooth emergence. Through probit regression analysis (SPSS Version 16.0), the median ages of emergence (MAE) and of functional eruption (MAF) were calculated per tooth; time difference between the two events represented CDE in months. Mann Whitney U tests and two-tailed Spearmans bivariate correlation test were used to investigate sexual dimorphisms in CDE, and find relationships between MAE and CDE, respectively. Significance was set at P ≤ 0.05. RESULTS The average CDE was (4.45 ± 1.96) months; it was less in males (4.33 ± 1.99) than in females (4.57 ± 1.93) with no significant gender differences (P = 0.38). Longest and shortest CDE were for maxillary first molars and mandibular lateral incisors, respectively. None of the teeth showed statistically significant differences in CDEs between genders. In addition, there were insignificant positive moderate correlations between MAE and CDE (r = 0.60, 0.52, P = 0.07, 0.12 for males and females, respectively). CONCLUSIONS This study has established the first standards for CDE in deciduous teeth for Jordanian children with an average CDE (4.5 ± 2, range 1.6-8 months). Some variations in CDE can be explained by variations in age of emergence however, variations in CDE were not related to gender. The deciduous dentition in Jordanians is in active state of eruption between approximately 8.2-32 months.

Mesiodistal and faciolingual diameters of the permanent teeth in a Jordanian population

OBJECTIVES This study aimed to provide, for a Jordanian population, the first norms of the faciolingual diameters of the permanent dentition and the mesiodistal diameters of the second molars and to provide and review previously published data on the mesiodistal diameters of the permanent teeth up to the first molars in order to investigate any secular trends. DESIGN Mesiodistal and faciolingual diameters of the permanent teeth were manually measured on 204 archival pretreatment study casts of adolescents (80 males and 124 females) aged 11-18 years. SPSS (version 16) was used to generate descriptive statistics and investigate the statistically significant differences between right and left sides and between sexes. RESULTS Males had larger teeth than females, significantly in the mesiodistal dimension and less significantly in the faciolingual dimension. Moreover, in the faciolingual dimension, there was a wider variation in anterior compared with posterior teeth and in males compared with females while the variations were more consistent mesiodistally between anterior and posterior teeth and between sexes. There were some secular trends in the mesiodistal permanent tooth diameters of Jordanians toward a slight reduction and wider variation in tooth size and a slight reduction in sexual dimorphism. CONCLUSIONS the present study has established the first norms of the faciolingual permanent tooth diameters for a Jordanian population which were consistent with corresponding norms that have been published for few other populations. In addition, the present study has provided norms of the mesiodistal permanent tooth diameters of a Jordanian population that are newer and more complete than the previously published norms. It is anticipated that the new norms presented will be utilized in various clinical disciplines of dentistry, in basic dental research, in forensic odontology and in anthropological research.

The visibility of mandibular canal on orthoradial and oblique CBCT slices at molar implant sites

ABSTRACT The aim of the present study was to compare visibility of the mandibular canal on cone beam computed tomography (CBCT)-based orthoradial and oblique slices at molar implant sites. CBCT images for 132 mandibular molar implant sites were selected for the study. After generating orthoradial and oblique slices, two observers evaluated the visibility of the mandibular canal using three-point scoring scale (1–3, good to excellent). Wilcoxon signed-rank test compared the visibility scores of the two slices. Both orthoradial and oblique slices obtained from CBCT had only very good to excellent mandibular canal visibility scores. At 114 mandibular molar implant sites, the visibility score was equal on both orthoradial and oblique slices. Although the visibility score was higher on orthoradial slices for 12 implant sites, the visibility score was higher for six implant sites on oblique slices and the difference was not significant. Therefore, the visibility of the mandibular canal was excellent and comparable on most of orthoradial and oblique slices obtained from CBCT images.

Timing of clinical eruption of third molars in a Jordanian population

OBJECTIVES This study aimed at providing the first standards on the timing of third molar eruption in Jordanians. METHODS A total of 571 healthy Jordanian adolescents and young adults aged 15-27 years (275 males and 296 females distributed into one-year age groups) were clinically examined for third molar eruption. Presence of four clinical eruption stages from crown emergence to full eruption were counted and expressed each as a frequency relative to the total of participants within a given age group. Using probit regression, median ages at each of the eruption stages were calculated for the whole sample and for both genders. RESULTS In the whole sample, maxillary and mandibular third molars were found to emerge at 20 and 20.6 years and to reach full eruption at 22.7 and 23.5 years respectively. At all of the four clinical eruption stages, third molars of males and lower jaw slightly preceded those of females and upper jaw respectively. However, none of the differences were statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS The first data on the timing of clinical eruption of third molars in a Jordanian population have been provided to be utilized in various clinical and research fields of orthodontics, dental pathology, oral surgery, paleodontology, forensic dentistry and police sciences. As the clinical duration of third molar eruption ranges from 20 to 24 years, the responsibility for providing care of third molar eruption problems is shifted from secondary schools to tertiary education, governmental and private work bodies.