Mandibular premolar differentiation

The authors present a method for differentiating between human mandibular premolars: P1 inf and P2 inf. The material with which the method was developed consisted of 260 stone casts. On these, both premolars were present and were intact on at least one side. The study models represented 131 girls and 129 boys, mean age 14.6 yr. In a comprehensive pilot project, a whole range of macromorphologic criteria was tested that, in various combinations, could be expected to be usable for differentiation between P1 inf and P2 inf. On the basis of the pilot study, the total variation was reduced to four criteria-combinations, called types, which, in summary, can be characterized as the following: type 1: flattening of the mesiolingual part of the crown, no lingual lobe; type 2: at least one lingual lobe; type 3: lingual part of the crown symmetrically curved, no lingual lobe; type 4: other characteristics. After definition of the types, their occurrence on P1 inf and P2 inf was definitively registered. Observations were made with a stereomicroscope; 131 premolar pairs from the right side and 129 from the left were registered. Statistical tests showed that there was no significant difference in the distribution of types between variants from the right and left sides, or between girls and boys. These data were therefore pooled for P1 inf and P2 inf, respectively. A subsequent test revealed, as expected, a highly significant difference in the distribution of the four types among 1. and 2. premolar.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)