Food Impaction

A 37-year-old man complains of food impaction between #14 and 15.  Panoramic X-ray shows mesioangular impaction of #16 (Fig.1 ^), which may press #15 root to rotate the tooth so that there is a diastema between #14 and 15.  When the impacted tooth is removed, it looks like a microdontia.  Intraop X-ray reveals a normal sized 3rd molar in situ (Fig.2: 16).  Therefore the microdontia removed is a supernumerary tooth.  The tooth #16 is then extracted.  The diastema appears to persist 2 years 7 months postop (Fig.3), although gingival swelling and pain reduces.  The follow up panoramic X-ray reveals a significant increase in PARL at #20.   Return to Professionals  Xin Wei, DDS, PhD, MS 1st edition 05/14/2020, last revision 05/16/2020