A radiographic study of the position and shape of mental foramen in panoramic radiographs

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the position and shape of mental foramen in panoramic radiographs. For this study, panoramic radiographs were obtained from the 200 adults and evaluated the position and shape of mental foramen. According to various positional changes in panoramic radiographs of the patients, the author also obtained panoramic radiographs from the 100 adults and then evaluated the positional and shape changes of mental foramen. The following results were obtained : 1. Shapes of mental foramen were observed elliptical (43.3%), round or oval (42.5%), unidentified (7.5%) and diffuse (6.7%) type in descending order of frequency. 2. Horizontal position of mental foramen were most frequently observed at the 2nd premolar area (54.2%), and area between the 1st premolar and 2nd premolar (43.1%), area between the 2nd premolar and 1st molar (2.7%), and at apex (9.7%), overlap with apex (1.9%), superior of apex (0.2%) in descending order of frequency. 4. According to various positional changes in panoramic radiographs of the patients, shape changes of mental foramen were more obviously observed at the forward 10 mm and chin down 10 degree positioned panoramic radiographs, And changes of horizontal and vertical position were observed in similar to compared with normal positioned panoramic radiographs.