Frequency and trends of cusp of Carabelli in maxillary first molars of patients visiting dental teaching hospital in Mardan, Pakistan

Wajiha Qamar; Mehran Qayum; Asma Ali; Sana Idrees

Frequency and trends of cusp of Carabelli in maxillary first molars of patients visiting dental teaching hospital in Mardan, Pakistan

Authors

Wajiha Qamar BDS, M.Phil (Oral Biology), Assistant Professor - Department of Oral Biology, Bacha Khan Medical College Mardan, Pakistan.
Mehran Qayum BDS, MPH, Team Leader â€“ Health, FATA Development Programme Deutsche Zusammenarbeit fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Peshawar.
Asma Ali BDS, M.Phil (Oral Biology), Department of Oral Biology, Bacha Khan Medical College Mardan.
Sana Idrees BDS, DCD (Paeds), Assistant Professor - Department of Paedodontics , KMU Institute of Dental Sciences Kohat.

Keywords:

Permanent dentition, cusp of carabelli, dental anomaly

Abstract

Introduction: Tooth variation has always been an area of interest to explore. The cusp of Carabelli is a small tubercle and is considered as a morphological change on palatal surface of the mesio-palatal cusp of maxillary permanent molars. The study was conducted with an objective to determine the frequency and trends of cusps of Carabelli in in permanent maxillary first molars of patients visiting dental OPD of a teaching hospital in Mardan.

Material and Methods: Hundred patients were examined between 11-55 years old attending the dental OPD of a teaching hospital in Mardan in a descriptive cross sectional study. Patients with severely carious, restored or missing upper first or second maxillary molars on any side were excluded. The maxillary first molars were examined for cusp of Carabelli.

Results: The frequency of cusps of Carabelli was seen in 32% of study population. All the subjects showed unilateral presentation and 69% of males showed expression of cusp of Carabelli when compared with females (31%). P value of 0.01 shows that the cusp of Carabelli is significantly more in males than females in maxillary molars

Conclusions: It was concluded that our study population had unilateral expression of cusp of Carabelli in maxillary first molar which was more pronounced in males than females.