Gingival Thickness of Impacted Maxillary Canines
Condition: Impacted Canines; Orthodontic Treatment; Gingival Thickness
MeSH terms: Tooth, Impacted
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      This study was conducted to compare the periodontal health of labially and palatally impacted
      maxillary canines with similar mesio-distal displacement, perpendicular distance, and
      angulation, and to compare them with the contralateral canines that served as control teeth.
      Two null hypothesis were tested: (1) there are no differences in attached and keratinized
      gingival widths and gingival thickness between impacted teeth and controls, and (2) there are
      no differences in attached and keratinized gingival widths and gingival thickness of labially
      and palatally impacted canines.
    

Detailed description: 
      When a tooth is embedded in the alveolar bone and fails to erupted into the oral cavity
      within the expected time, dental impaction occurs. Maxillary canine impaction has been
      observed more frequently in the palatal position than labial position, and unilaterally than
      bilaterally. Treatment of these teeth, which consitute a transition between the anterior and
      posterior dental segments and therefore have a great of importance both from functional and
      aesthetic point of view, is recommended rather than extraction.

      Many complications that have been reported to be faced during the surgical exposure and
      orthodontic alignment of the impacted teeth are devitalization, external root resorption,
      damage to adjacent teeth, marginal bone loss, re-exposure of the tooth, and gingival
      recession. Gingival recession is the apical migration of the gingival margin beyond the
      cementoenamel junction, resulting in the clinical exposure of the root surface. The term
      gingival biotype is generally used to describe the thickness of the gingiva in
      faciolingual/faciopalatinal direction.

      Although a large number of existing studies in the broader literature have examined the
      periodontal health of labially and palatally impacted maxillary canines seperately, limited
      number of studies compared the labially and palatally maxillary impacted canines. Since one
      of the factors affecting the posttreatment periodontal health is the initial vertical and
      horizontal position of the impacted teeth, these studies were observed not provided any
      information about the pretreatment mesio-distal displacement, perpendicular distance and
      angulation of the impacted maxillary canines. At this point, this study was conducted to
      compare the periodontal health of labially and palatally impacted maxillary canines with
      similar mesio-distal displacement, perpendicular distance, and angulation, and to compare
      them with the contralateral canines that served as control teeth. Two null hypothesis were
      tested: (1) there are no differences in attached and keratinized gingival widths and gingival
      thickness between impacted teeth and controls, and (2) there are no differences in attached
      and keratinized gingival widths and gingival thickness of labially and palatally impacted
      canines.
    

Intervention name(s): closed eruption technique
Intervention type(s): Procedure
Intervention description(s): The impacted teeth treated with closed eruption technique firstly. Orthodontic traction started a week later the sutures were removed. When the crown of the maxillary impacted canine was fully visible in the mouth, its bracket was inserted, and aligned within the dental arch using double-arch technique. Posttreatment plaque index, gingival index, gingival bleeding index, probing depth, and keratinized and attached gingival width and gingival thickness measurements of the impacted canines and controls were performed. The measurements compared with the contralateral canines that served as control teeth.
Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention model: Sequential Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Treatment
Keywords: Impacted Canine; Closed Eruption Technique; Gingival Thickness; Keratinized Gingival Width; Attached Gingival Width