The timing of mandibular tooth formation in two African groups

Abstract

Background: Ethnic differences in the timing of human tooth development are unclear.

Aim: To describe similarities and differences in the timing of tooth formation in two groups of Sudanese children and young adults.

Subjects and methods: The sample consisted of healthy individuals from Khartoum, Sudan, aged 2–23 years. The Northern group was of Arab origin (848 males, 802 females) and the Western group was of African origin (846 males, 402 females). Each mandibular left permanent tooth from first incisor to third molar was assessed from dental radiographs into one of 15 development stages. Mean ages at entry for 306 tooth stages were calculated using probit regression in males/females in each group and compared using a t-test.

Results: Mean ages were not significantly different in most tooth stage comparisons between ethnic groups for both males (61/75) and females (56/76), despite a tendency of earlier mean ages in the Western group. Mean ages for most tooth stage comparisons between males and females (137/155) were not significantly different within ethnic groups suggesting low sexual dimorphism.

Conclusion: The mean ages of most mandibular tooth formation stages were generally not significantly different between ethnic groups or between males and females in this study.

Keywords:

• Ethnic origin
• tooth formation
• sexual dimorphism
• individual variation
• group differences

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Wagner Marcenes (Dental Institute, Queen Mary University of London) and Mudather Widaa, Nihal Abdelazeem, Israa Salah, Ahmed Yahia and Motaman Elhadi (Khartoum Centre for Research and Medical Training) for help during the planning and data collection of this study. We are grateful to the two anonymous reviewers whose suggestions improved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest, financial or personal relations with other organisations or people who may influence the study findings inappropriately.