Abstract
ObjectivesThe location of the mandibular foramen is essential for the quality of the inferior alveolar nerve block anaesthesia and has often been studied with contradictory results over the years. The aim of this study was to locate the mandibular foramen, according to the dental age of the subject, through 3D analysis.MethodsThree-dimensional images were reconstructed from mandibular computed tomography of 260 children, adolescents and adults. The occlusal plane was determined as the average plane passing through the buccal cusps of mandibular molars, premolars, and canines, and through the incisor edge. The mandibular foramen was located three dimensionally in relation to the anterior edge of the ramus (or coronoid notch), the sagittal plane and the occlusal plane.ResultsAll along mandibular growth, the three distances defining the relative position of the mandibular foramen showed negligible changes. The mandibular foramen is located from − 0.4 to 2.9 mm above the occlusal plane. The distance between the mandibular foramen and the leading edge of the mandibular ramus ranged from 17 to 19.5 mm. The angle between the ramus and the sagittal plane ranged from 3° to 5.4°.ConclusionIn our sample, and using the occlusal plane and the anterior edge of the ramus as anatomical references, the location of the mandibular foramen was considered to be similar in all patients regardless of age.
Highlights
The inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) is of considerable interest in dentistry and oral surgery
The sample was composed of 260 computed tomography (CT) scans, including 127 females and 133 males of mixed ethnicity from France, with a mean age of 12.38 ± 6.66 years (Table 3)
No significant differences were observed between males and females and left–right symmetry was respected (Table 4)
Summary
The inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) is of considerable interest in dentistry and oral surgery. This procedure is recommended by the American Association of Paediatric Dentistry [1]. For extraction of teeth in infected sites or endodontics, local infiltration may not be as effective as a mandibular block in molars [2]. This technique has one of the highest failure incidences among dental anaesthetic techniques [3] with a reported failure rate between 15 and 30% [4, 5]. Many studies have tried to determine its position, but the results are often contradictory
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