I have here is a photo of an 8 year old girl's dentition. The parents were amazed, how come there's another tooth behind the left permanent maxillary central incisor? and then I said," that is called a supernumerary or accessory tooth. In Dentistry, some called it Hyperdontia.
Supernumerary teeth can be classified by shape and by position. The shapes include:
- Supplemental(where the tooth has a normal shape for the teeth in that series);
- Tuberculate (also called "barrel shaped");
- Conical (also called "peg shaped");
- Compound odontome (multiple small tooth-like forms);
- Complex odontome (a disorganized mass of dental tissue)
When classified by position, a supernumerary tooth may be referred to as a mesiodens, a paramolar, or a distomolar.
The most common supernumerary tooth is a mesiodens, which is a mal-formed, peg-like tooth that occurs between the maxillary central incisors.
Fourth and fifth molars that form behind the third molars are another kind of supernumerary teeth
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| Periapical Radiograph showing translucency within the left permanent maxillary central incisor, that is the supernumerary tooth of the child patient. |
Since the supernumerary tooth is pushing the central incisor forward resulting to malalignment of the arch, extraction is the best solution.( as seen in the image below)
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| Extracted supernumerary tooth |
Actually, what I have here is just a simple case, only one extra tooth is present. In some cases, they have more than one extra teeth just like what is shown below:
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| Image from a fellow dental blogger. |
