Growth and development of dentitions in Indian children. I. Development of permanent teeth

Abstract

THE chronology of tooth development has been a subject of investigation for a long time, and its relationship to the chronology of human growth has often Been discussed. Tooth development may be inhibited or occasionally accelerated by constitutional disturbances, such as rickets and syphilis, by disturbances in calcium and phosphorus metabolism, by endocrinopathies, and by infectious processes. In 1955 Gleiser and Hunt1 made a detailed study of the chronology of calcification of the permanent mandibular first molar and reported that arrests in the ossification of hand and wrist bones often coincide with arrests in tooth formation. Since delay in cd&cation can &feet both bones and teeth, it is possible to use dental roentgenograms to some extent for the assessment o’f growth progress in children. Gleiser and Hunt also suggested that the calcification of a tooth may be a more meaningful indication of somatic maturation than its clinical emergence. This view is supported by Nanda,2 who foundwnly a low correlation between the age at complete emergence of the permanent dentition, the age at the maximum rate of the circumpubertal growth spurt in height in both sexes, and the age at menarche in girls. The formation and eruption of the teeth and the coincidental growth of the alveolar processes play a very important role in the extensive structural changes that occur during the prolonged and complicated process of facial development. The greatest changes in the face from birth to adolescence occur in the area