Matters relating to tooth sizes in Kenyan and British subjects

The mesio-distal widths of teeth and the breadth of the dental arches were measured on study casts of twenty young Kenyan African males and twenty young male British adults in Belfast, Northern Ireland. All subjects had normal occlusion. Measurements were repeated for reproducibility testing which proved satisfactory. With the exception of the lower central incisor, all the Kenyan teeth were larger than their Caucasian counterparts, but only the differences relating to the premolar and molar teeth reached the level of statistical significance. The lower arch breadths measured between the first premolars and between the first permanent molars proved significantly greater in the Kenyan group. In the upper arch, the mean premolar breadth was greater but the difference in molar breadth was not statistically significant. This finding relates to the diminished buccal overjet in the Kenyan subject.