## 4 Discussion  
Impacted teeth are teeth that cannot be found in the normal position in the mouth, have not erupted, usually cause pathology, and need to be treated. All permanent teeth may remain impacted in the dental arch. The most impacted are mandibular and maxillary third molars, maxillary canine, and mandibular and maxillary second premolar and maxillary central incisors [4]. Since mandibular third molars are the most frequently impacted teeth, their operations are also the most common procedure in maxillofacial surgery [15; 16; 23; 24; 25]. This retrospective study to assess the prevalence of impacted third molars among the North Cyprus population included 550 patients. In this study, standard clinical radiographic findings were used from patients during a routine examination. A total of 1752 third molars were found in 550 patients. Of all teeth, 740 of the teeth were from female patients, while 1012 were teeth from male patients. Males tend to have a higher incidence of impacted third molars (\(p>0.05\)). The male to female ratio was 302:248 (1.21:1), with a \(p\)-value of 0.897, which is not statistically significant. Our male to female ratio of impacted molars is similar to the other studies [3; 26; 27]. The age group in which the third molars were impacted the most was the 20-29 years age group (62%), with the rate of impacted molars decreasing as the age increases. This is similar to other studies and is widely seen when the literature is searched [4; 26; 28]. The reason for this may be that the third molars tend to cause problems in an earlier period of life, and therefore the related teeth are often surgically extracted in an earlier period of life. Observed impacted third molars were more impacted in the mandibular arch than in the maxillary arch in both genders. The ratio of mandibular third molar (\(n=932\)) to maxillary third molar (\(n=820\)) was 1.13:1. The greater incidence of impaction in the lower jaw may be due to the more compactness of the bone structure in the mandible. Third molar impaction is a common problem affecting a large proportion of the population throughout the world. In this study, the incidence of impacted third molars in the North Cyprus population was estimated at 59% (1036/1752). The reported incidence in the present research is higher than published research in the Southeast region [20; 29; 30]; on the other hand, it is less than published research in the United States of America and Singapore [5; 31; 32]. This difference may be due to genetic and racial differences, which are two important factors in tooth impaction. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline  & **Impacted Maximillary Third** & **Impacted Mandibular Third** \\  & **Molars** & **Molars** \\ \hline Vertical type & 62\% & 30\% \\ \hline Mesioangular type & 33\% & 42\% \\ \hline Distoangular type & 2\% & 4\% \\ \hline Horizontal type & 3\% & 23\% \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 7: Distribution of impacted maxillary and mandibular third molars by type. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline  & **Completely Impacted** & **Partially Impacted** & **Total (\(n=1036\))** \\  & **Third Malar (\(n=549\))** & **Third Malar (\(n=487\))** & **Total (\(n=1036\))** \\ \hline Symptoms & 144 (26\%) & 239 (49\%) & 383 (37\%) \\ \hline Without symptoms & 405 (73\%) & 248 (50\%) & 653 (63\%) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 8: Distribution of completely impacted and partially impacted third molars with and without symptoms. Impacted mandibular third molar teeth were mostly found in the mesioangular position (42%) and were least observed in the distoangular (4%) position. In the maxillary arch, the most common type was vertical impaction (62%), and the least common type was horizontal impaction (3%). According to reports from Pakistan, the USA, Nigeria, China, Thailand, Spain, and Malaysia, the most common impaction type is mesioangular in the maxilla.