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Evaluation of condylar position from transcranial projections in primary dentition
1Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Piracicaba Dental School-State University of Campinas, SP, Brazil.
Objectives:
To evaluate the condylar position through transcranial radiographs in children between 3 years and 6 years old and to associate it with morphological characteristics of primary dentition.
Methods:
The extraoral transcranial radiographs were taken with plain films using the Accurad-200 head holder (Denar Company, Anaheim, CA), and then they were digitized using a Hewlett Packard 6390 Scanner. The condylar position was determined according to Gelb's template, in postural rest position (RP) and maximum intercuspal position (MI), and it was associated with the characteristics: normal occlusion (n=36), open bite with or without overjet greater than 3 mm (n=27), unilateral or bilateral posterior cross bite (n=14), overbite greater than 3 mm (n=15). The chi-square and the Fisher Exact Test were used to analyse the data.
Results:
It was verified that when using Gelb's template, there was not a significant association between the occlusion type found and the position of the condyle in the glenoid fossa when considering the entire patient sample (P>0.05). There was a great variability in positions, and most of the children had asymmetric condyles (55.43% in MI and 51.09% in RP). Children with normal occlusion and malocclusion presented the same proportions of condylar position in both mandibular positions.
Conclusions:
In conclusion, the results of this study showed that the condylar position in small children with different morphological occlusions presented great variability.
