Objective characterization of dental occlusal and fissure morphologies: Method development and exploratory analysis.

Objective: To develop clinically applicable methods to characterize occlusal topography and assess possible associations between morphology and caries incidence and development.

Design: In this retrospective clinical study, we evaluated caries presence and severity pre- and post-orthodontic treatment for first molars of 147 patients (384 teeth). These teeth were previously scanned using a clinical intraoral scanner, and the obtained digital elevation models were used to 1) analyze the 3D occlusal surface parameters (n = 384) and 2) quantitatively characterize the mandibular molars' (n = 166) fissure patterns using three novel methods.