ABSTRACT
AIM: To compare the inter-canine and inter-molar widths between crowded and non-crowded patients in Benin city, Nigeria.
METHOD: This is a cross-sectional study involving analysis of casts of pre- treatment orthodontic patients at university of Benin teaching hospital, Edo state. A non-probability sampling method was used in which casts which fulfilled the inclusion criteria would be included in the study. Data was analyzed using the Statistic Package for Social science (IBM version 21.0) for windows. Continuous data would be represented in frequencies, mode, mean and standard deviation and categorical variables will be compared Chi-square statistics. The level of significance 95% and p-values <0.05 would be considered statistically significant.
RESULTS: A total of 50 respondents participated in this study. Each participant with an upper and lower jaw. This shows the result shows that in the maxilla of the male and female patients has an intermolar and intercanine width that does not give significance to the crowded or uncrowded status while the values of the arch width in the mandible gives significance to the crowded or uncrowded status
CONCLUSION: From the result obtained from this study it is seen that there was no correlation between arch width (gotten from the inter molar and inter canine widths) in the maxilla (upper jaw) of both male and female suggesting that the aetiology of dental crowding may not be from decreased arch width. However, it was obtained that in the mandible, dental crowding seen is as a result of a reduced arch width in the male and female genders.
KEYWORDS: Intermolar width, intercanine width, crowded, non-crowded, arch width.
