Evaluation of Carabelli’s trait in a group of Turkish patients

Abstract

Objectives: Dental morphological characteristics are useful for providing information in phylogenic and genetic studies and also for understanding variations within and among species. Carabelli cusp is expressed in several degrees and in different frequencies among humans; thus, it is helpful in comparing and characterizing populations. The objective of this retrospective study was to evaluate Carabelli’s trait (CT) in a group of Turkish patients. Materials and Methods: In this study, 213 patients between age of 14-65 (mean age 29.99 ± 10.04) were analyzed retrospectively according to presence or absence of CT on permanent maxillary first and second molars. All data were statistically analyzed using the IBM SPSS version 22 program (IBM SPSS, Turkey) and the chi-squared test; p < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: Prevalence of CT was found to be 47.9% in the selected Turkish group. Incidence of CT in any of the teeth on #16/26 was 46.9% and 4.2% on #17/27. Incidence was detected more on #26 (43.2%) than on #16 (40.4%). Bilateral presence of CT on #16/26 was detected in 78%. CT was seen in 50.7% of females and in 42.9% of males. There was no statistically significant difference between genders (p > 0.05). Conclusions: Expression of CT can be placed in moderate prevalence group. There was no sexual dimorphism in its occurrence in the studied group. CT can be a valuable criterion to determine differences among various populations and a significant insight into the migratory patterns in a selected geographical area.

Keywords

• carabelli’s trait
• non-metric trait
• dental morphological feature
• sexual dimorphism
• maxillary molars