Diagnosis and treatment planning: cracked tooth

This article discusses the cracked tooth, one of the five major classifications of longitudinal tooth fractures: 1) craze line; 2) cuspal fracture; 3) cracked tooth; 4) split tooth; and 5) vertical root fracture. The term "longitudinal tooth fracture" was first introduced by Rivera (Personal Communication, Iowa City, IA, 1996) and has two meanings. The first implies distance (length), particularly in the vertical (occlusal-cervical) plane, as illustrated by longitudinal lines on a map. The second indicates that these fractures occur over a period of time. Therefore, the term longitudinal tooth fracture applies to fractures that have both a distance and a time component. Thus, fractures are described that are not related to impact trauma (which occurs primarily in incisors), in which the distance (length) component may be similar, but is immediate instead of over a period of time.