Prevalence of supernumerary teeth among a sample of patients attending college of dentistry in Erbil, Iraq (A Retrospective study)

Abstract

Background and Objectives: A supernumerary tooth is an additional tooth to the normal series and can be located in almost any region of the dental arch. The objective of the study was to investigate the prevalence of supernumerary teeth and the distribution of the cases according to the demographic data and characteristics among patients attending a College of Dentistry in Erbil, Iraq. Methods: This descriptive and retrospective study was performed on 1233 patients (658 males 53.4% and 575 females 46.6%) ranging in age from 3 to 14 years old during the period 2017-2018. The characteristics of supernumerary teeth were noted and diagnosed during the clinical and radiographic examination. The demographic variables including age and gender was recorded for each patient. During statistical analysis Fisher's exact test was used. p value of less than .05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Only eight supernumerary teeth were detected in 1233 patients (0.6 %). 7 patients were males and 1 patient was female with a 1.14:1 male/female ratio (p =0.089). Among supernumeraries: most of them 5 teeth (62.5%) were found in the maxillary anterior, and 7 teeth (87.5%) were conical in morphology. All the supernumerary teeth occurred as single tooth within the oral cavity. Regarding eruption status within the arch, all supernumerary teeth (100%) had erupted. All supernumerary teeth (100%) were extracted. Conclusion: The identification of this anomaly provides a clue towards the possibility of any complication, pathologies, other related dental anomalies, syndromes and familial association in Erbil, Iraq.