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Updated: Jul 14, 2026
A Finite Element Approach for Locating the Center of Resistance of Maxillary Teeth
Published on: April 8, 2020
Radiographic localization of supernumerary teeth: a narrative review
Sreekanth Kumar Mallineni1, Robert Prashanth Anthonappa2, Jayakumar Jayaraman3
1Pediatric Dentistry, Dr. Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Group, Ar Rayyan, Riyadh, Makkah Province, Saudi Arabia.
Objectives:
To conduct a narrative review of the published literature on the localization techniques to identify the best technique for the localization of supernumerary teeth.
Methods:
An extensive search of literature published in English between January 1966 and May 2024 was conducted using the "Medline via PubMed" and "Cochrane database" databases. The keywords included in the search were "localization" "radiographs", and "impacted teeth", or "un-erupted teeth", or "supernumerary teeth" or "supernumerary tooth". The citation lists from the included articles were examined to identify additional reports and a hand search was also conducted. Kappa statistics were used for intra-examiner reliability.
Results:
The initial search yielded 4,864 citations, subsequently examined and supplemented by a hand search to find additional studies. Commonly used techniques for the localization of supernumerary teeth are the horizontal tube shift technique, vertical tube shift technique, vertex occlusal technique, and cone-beam computerized tomography.
Conclusion:
The most commonly used localization techniques for supernumerary teeth are horizontal tube shift, vertex occlusal, vertical tube shift, and cone-beam computerized tomography. Conventional radiographs only provide two-dimensional views of 3-dimensional structures. Three-dimensional imaging alone can provide accurate data on impacted supernumerary teeth but, the need for this film has to be justified because of the higher radiation exposure.
