# Taurodontism--Prevalence, Extent, and Clinical Challenge in Ashkelon, Israel--A Retrospective Study
## 3 Results  
The study comprised of 624 patients--330 males (52.8%) and 294 females (47.1%) with no statistical significance in an age range of 9 to 29 years. A total of 2849 permanent first and second molars were examined: 1106 lower first molars, 849 upper first molars, 655 lower second molars, and 239 upper second molars. Taurodontism was found in 329 molars (11.5% of examined teeth) among 209 patients, which consists of 33.6% of all patients--149 males (48%) and 160 females (52%) who had at least one taurodont tooth. The prevalence of taurodont molars was consistently higher in the teeth of females as demonstrated in Table 1.  
Figure 1: Taurodontism variables by [PERSON] and [PERSON] 1978.  
In general, 43% of taurodont teeth were in the mandible and 57% were in the maxilla with statistical significance (\(p=0.001\)). Hypotaurodontism was found (Table 2) in 309 molars (10.8%), mesotaurodontism in 15 molars (0.5%), and 5 molars were found with hypertaurodontism (0.2%).  
Hypotaurodontism was the most common shape detected and comprised of 94.3% of the whole taurodont molars (the rest is 4.6% and 1.5% accordingly). Figure 2 describes the ratio of taurodont teeth in each location according to the quadrant of the mouth. The prevalence of taurodontism was the highest on the upper left side (\(p=0.001\)) and the lowest on the lower left side. The distribution of hypotaurodontism in the upper left second molars was more than three times greater than in the left lower second molars (see Figure 3) and two times more prevalent in the upper right molars in comparison to lower right molars.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Location**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Sex**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Total**} \\ \cline{2-2} \cline{4-4}  & **Female** & & **Male** \\ \hline Upper right & 313 & 256 & 569 \\  & 55\% & 45\% & 100\% \\ \hline Upper left & 272 & 247 & 519 \\  & 52\% & 48\% & 100\% \\ \hline Lower right & 457 & 411 & 868 \\  & 53\% & 47\% & 100\% \\ \hline Lower right & 469 & 422 & 891 \\  & 53\% & 47\% & 100\% \\ \hline Total & 1511 & 1336 & 2847 \\  & 53\% & 47\% & 100\% \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 1: The effect of gender on the prevalence of taurodont molars.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Location**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Normal**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Taurodontism**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Total**} \\ \cline{2-2} \cline{4-4}  & & **Hypo** & **Meso** & **Hyper** & **Total** \\ \hline Upper right & 475 & 90 & 3 & 1 & 94 & 569 \\  & 83.50\% & 15.80\% & 0.50\% & 0.20\% & 16.50\% & 100.00\% \\ \hline Upper left & 414 & 98 & 7 & 0 & 105 & 519 \\  & 79.80\% & 18.90\% & 1.30\% & 0.00\% & 20.20\% & 100.00\% \\ \hline Lower right & 803 & 64 & 1 & 2 & 67 & 870 \\  & 92.30\% & 7.40\% & 0.10\% & 0.20\% & 7.70\% & 100.00\% \\ \hline Lower left & 828 & 57 & 4 & 2 & 63 & 891 \\  & 92.90\% & 6.40\% & 0.40\% & 0.20\% & 7.10\% & 100.00\% \\ \hline Total & 2520 & 309 & 15 & 5 & 329 & 2849 \\  & 88.50\% & 10.80\% & 0.50\% & 0.20\% & 11.50\% & 100.00\% \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 2: The distribution of taurodontism in right and left side.  
Prevalence of hypotaurodontism (the least severe type) among every tooth is presented in Table 3. Hypotaurodontism had the highest occurrence, 23.6% in the upper right second molar, 19.4% in the upper left first molar, and 17.2% in the upper left second molar. Mesotaurodontism, which demonstrates lower occurrence compared to hypotaurodontism, occurs with the highest occurrence of 5.2% in upper left second molars.  
Figure 3: The distribution of hypotaurodont, mesotaurodont, and hypertaurodont teeth in the four quadrants of the mouth.  
Figure 2: The effect of gender on the prevalence of taurodont molars.