Cone Beam Computed Tomography as a Tool to Detect the Causes of Permanent Maxillary Central Incisors Impaction

Background When the maxillary central incisors fail to erupt into the oral cavity at the normal time, a clinician should determine the reasons and perform an accurate treatment plan. Although the impaction of maxillary central incisors is not a frequently case in dental practice, but its treatment is challenging because of its importance to facial esthetics in addition to functional demands thus the early radiographic diagnosis is very important. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the ability of Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) as a tool to diagnose the causes of impacted permanent maxillary central incisors. Material and method CBCT scans of 50 subjects with age range (9 - 12) years with impacted maxillary central incisors, the following parameters were evaluated main causes of impaction such as (malposition, presence of supernumerary teeth or odontomas and other pathological lesions), gender, unilateral/bilateral occurrence, and the side of impaction, the collected data was obtained from Specialist Health Center in AL-Sadder city in Baghdad using Kodak cone beam computed tomography unit with scanning parameters (90 kVp), (10) s, (10) mA, (300) mm voxel size, and field of view (15) mm. Results Most of the impacted maxillary central incisors were observed in males (56 %), bilaterally (27cases). In most of the impacted cases supernumerary was responsible for the highest percentage (54 %), followed by (28 %) caused by malposition, (12 %) caused by odontoma, (6 %) caused by Pathologic cyst. Conclusion CBCT images can provide a reliable assessment of the impacted maxillary central incisors and differentiate between the causative factors that leading to this impaction.