Prevalence of pulp stone (Orthopantomographic-based)

Abstract

Background: Pulp stones (denticles) are discrete calcified aggregates that occur most frequently in the dental pulp.It was found in healthy, diseased and sometimes in erupted teeth. Its number appears to increase with increasingage. It is usually detected during radiographic examination as radiopaque masses of variable size and shape. Theaims of this study were to calculate the prevalence of pulp stones in young Iraqi adults by using digitalorthopantomgraph, and to report any associations between occurrence of pulp stones with, gender, tooth type,and dental arch.Subject, Material and Method: A total of 390 digital panoramic radiographs were collected from oral diagnosisdepartment /College of Dentistry for Iraqi sample, University of Baghdad and Al-Karkh General Hospital. The samplecomposed of 169 male and 221 female with mean age (26.9 years). About 10510 teeth were evaluated; pulp stonesscored as present or absent, number of stone and associations with, gender, tooth type and dental arch wererecordedResult: From 390 (OPG) total of 3758 teeth were examined, 136 patients have pulp stone present in (276) teeth.According to gender, 75 female with 143 teeth (51.8%) and 61 male with 133 teeth (48.1), that is mean there was nosignificant difference of ( pulp stone occurrence) found between female and male. Their presence were seldomfound in the premolars 18 teeth (7%) but was much higher in the molars 258 teeth (93%) and the difference isstatistically significant. Pulp stone occurrence was significantly more common in the first molars than in the secondmolars and in the first premolars than in the second premolars in each dental arch. No difference between the twoarches could be identified.Conclusion: Pulp stones are not only incidental radiographic findings of the pulp tissue but may also be an indicatorof some serious underlying disease. On the other hand, they may provide useful information to predict about thesusceptibility of patients for other dystrophic soft tissue calcifications such as urinary calculi and calcified atheromas