Are morphological and morphometric characteristics of maxillary anterior region and nasopalatine canal related to each other?

Objectives: The main purpose of this article was to clarify the relationship of anterior bone and tooth morphology with NPC. The anatomical features of the NPC region in three dimensions from coronal, axial, and sagittal directions were analyzed using CBCT and the effects of age, gender, sagittal root positions (SRPs) of central teeth, anterior overbite depth (AOD), central incisor (CI)/palatal plane (PP) angle, NPC/PP angle, and collum angles (CA) on NPC were evaluated in a group of the Turkish population.

Materials And Methods: In this retrospective study, CBCTs of a total of 330 individuals between the ages of 17 and 82 were evaluated. The effects of SRP, AOD, CI/PP angle, NPC/PP angle and CA on the anatomical features of NPC were examined on the basis of age and gender. Descriptive statistics, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Chi-square, Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney-U, Kruskal-Wallis, and Spearman correlation tests were used. p values of < 0.05 were accepted as statistically significant.

Results: While the SRPs, CI/PP angle, NPC/PP angle, CA, and age did not differ statistically according to NPC shape (p > 0.05), NPC shape varied according to gender and AOD (p < 0.05). It was found that cylindrical NPC (32.8%) was more common in females, while conical-shaped NPC (30.7%) was more common in males (p < 0.01). While most conical NPC was detected in individuals with Class I overbite depth, cylindrical NPCs were found in Class II and III individuals (p < 0.01).

Conclusions: The results showed that gender and AOD are influential factors on NPC shape. While conical-shaped NPC is more common in individuals with bite depth incisal, cylindrical-shaped NPC is more likely to be seen in individuals with middle and cervical thirds.