Objective characterization of dental occlusal and fissure morphologies: Method development and exploratory analysis

Area of Science:

• Dental morphology
• Caries research
• Digital dentistry

Background:

• Accurate characterization of occlusal topography is crucial for understanding caries development.
• Existing methods may not fully capture the complex morphology of tooth surfaces.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate novel methods for quantifying occlusal topography and fissure patterns.
• To investigate potential associations between these morphological features and the incidence/severity of dental caries.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of 384 first molars from 147 patients using intraoral scanner data.
• Development of three novel methods for quantitative characterization of mandibular molar fissure patterns.
• Statistical analysis using Pearson correlation and generalized linear mixed-effects models to assess associations with caries.

Main Results:

• Successfully developed robust quantitative methods for fissure characterization and occlusal surface parameter analysis.
• No statistically significant associations were found between measured occlusal surface parameters or fissure morphology and caries presence or severity in the studied population.

Conclusions:

• The developed tools for occlusal surface and fissure morphology characterization show potential for future clinical applications.
• Further research with larger sample sizes is warranted to confirm or refute the association between occlusal topography and caries incidence.