Cone Beam CT Description of Mental Foramen Variants: A Review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32828/mdj.v20i1.1147Keywords:
Mental Foramen, cone beam CT, anatomy, implant, morphologyAbstract
The mental foramen (MF) is a crucial marker for local anesthetic, surgical, and implantology treatments. After passing through the mandibular canal, the inferior alveolar nerve and blood vessels exit the MF as the mental vascular nerve. On radiographs, MF appears as a round or oval area of radiolucency inferiorly to the corpus mandible on the lateral sides (left and right). Consideration must be given to its morphology, location, and anatomical variances to minimize mental nerve harm. The focus of this literature review is to find out whether cone beam CT (CBCT) can accurately evaluate MF anatomy implantation and increase the clinician's understanding of this critical topic. Evidence-based research published between 1987 and 2022 was looked for in the literature using MEDLINE (PubMed), Web of Science, Scopus, the Iraq Virtual Science Library, and manual investigation of more sources. This was done to find articles that might be relevant. Between the two premolars, or apically to the second premolar, was where the MF was located most of the time. Men had larger mental foramens than women did, on average. Males tended to have a longer anterior loop than females. More frequently than panoramic, CBCT correctly identified the anterior loop and accessory MF.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
