Adequacy of maxillary dental arch width in patients with palatally displaced canines

This study investigates maxillary dental arch width in subjects with palatally displaced canines. Pretreatment dental casts of orthodontic patients with one or both maxillary canines palatally displaced (n = 31; male, 10; female, 21) were collected. This sample was matched according to sex and age with pretreatment dental casts from unaffected orthodontic patients. Arch widths were recorded between the maxillary first premolars and between the maxillary first molars. Interpremolar arch width and intermolar arch width comparisons between the sample with palatally displaced canines and the reference sample showed no statistically significant differences in their means, thus indicating that there was no statistically significant difference in the anterior and posterior arch width between the affected subjects and the control subjects. Thus, affected patients exhibit adequacy of maxillary dental arch width. This evidence refutes earlier conclusions that deficiency in maxillary transverse arch width is an associated contributing factor in the genesis of the anomaly of palatally displaced canines. Clinically, adequacy of dental arch width helps explain the "nonextraction" diagnostic appearance of most of these patients when they present for treatment.