Advocacy of diagnostic criteria for maxillary incisive canal cysts based on alteration of normal maxillary incisive canals according to aging in Japanese populations.

Background: The purpose of the present study was to describe the CT imaging findings of normal incisive canals and incisive canal cysts and propose cut-off values to differentiate between them.

Methods: A total of 220 normal subjects and 40 patients with incisive canal cysts on multi-detector row computed tomography (MDCT) were retrospectively analyzed. The shapes, sizes, anatomic variations, Hounsfield scale values, and so on of maxillary incisive canals and the sizes and Hounsfield scale values of maxillary incisive canal cysts were analyzed.