Pathogenesis and mechanism of traumatic injuries to teeth.

Abstract

Abstract Type of tooth injury is determined by the energy and direction of impact, as well as by the resilience and shape of the offending object. A total of 1611 traumatized teeth in 1152 patients were examined to investigate differences in injury patterns in relation to the etiology and mechanism of injury. The injuries were divided into mild, moderate and serious, and into hard tissue injuries, periodontal tissue injuries, or injuries involving both types of tissue. The mechanisms were divided into four categories describing the energy, shape and resilience of the offending object. Seven etiological categories were recognized. The numbers of teeth injured simultaneously differed between accidents (p< 0.01), with violence and traffic accidents causing multiple injuries more frequently than sports or undefined accidents at home or at school, which were more often single‐tooth traumas. Injuries due to traffic accidents were estimated as serious more often than those of other etiologies. Individual sports accidents resulted in more hard tissue injuries, while violence caused more periodontally injured teeth. Numbers of teeth injured simultaneously and types of injuries differed according to the mechanism of the trauma (p< 0.05 and p< 0.001 respectively). A resilient surface or resilient object resulted less often in single tooth injuries than a hard surface or hard object, but more often in periodontally injured teeth.