Clinical and Radiographic Study of Dens Evaginatus

Concomitant developmental dental anomalies in Chinese children with dens evaginatus

“…A probable reason was that the children in this study were examined under optimal dental setting that made identification of small tubercle easier than in field studies. More mandibular premolars were found to be affected by dens evaginatus in this study, which concurred with the findings from previous studies [1,2,4,5].…”

“…Dens evaginatus is a developmental anomaly that can be defined as a tubercle from the surface of an affected tooth and is found most frequently in premolars [1,2]. The occurrence of dens evaginatus shows great racial difference, with higher prevalence in people of Mongoloid origin but rarer in Caucasian race.…”

“…Goto et al . found 53 cases of dens evaginatus in a Japanese population, and two of those affected had dens invaginatus [1]. The small sample sizes in these early studies made the determination of a true association difficult.…”

Dental abscess in a tooth with intact dens evaginatus

“…Early studies have shown that over 75% of the tubercles were eventually fractured or worn [1,5]. Reichart & Tantiniran have shown that 27% of the premolars with dens evaginatus had periapical abscesses [3].…”

“…In another study, Goto et al . found that 18% of the anomalous premolars were associated with periapical lesions, and all these teeth showed either worn or fractured tubercles [1]. It was suggested that exposure of the patent dentinal tubules with or without pulpal exposure opened a pathway for bacterial invasion [13–15].…”