A MORPHOLOGICAL STUDY ON RESIDUAL ALVEOLAR RIDGES OF EDENTULOUS JAWS

무치악 잔존치조제의 형태학적 연구

Impression ragistration is an improtant and difficult phase of prosthodontic treatment procedures and a tray of appropriate size and shape is essential to obtain the accurate impression. Particularly, in edentulous patients, the size and forms of their residual alveolar ridges are different from one another. Therefore, in this study, various measurements were taken on the edentulous models. And the measurements were analyzed and compared with one another. The results were as follows ; 1. The mean of denture bearing area was $32.86cm^2$ in the upper jaws, $24.20cm^2$ in the lower jaws and the variation of denture bearing area was greater in the upper than in the lower jaws and in males than in females. 2. The mean of A-P(anteroposterior) ridge length was 48.72mm in the upper jaws, 53.05mm in the lower jaws and that of males was longer than that of females. 3. The mean of most posterior ridge width was 47.23mm in the upper jaws, 58.03mm in the lower jaws and the difference of that between males and females was least in both jaws. 4. In the upper jaws, the mean of ridge width was 29.66mm on anterior 1/4, 42.79mm on middle, 48.95mm on posterior 1/4 line and the mean of palatal height was 4.56mm on anterior 1/4, 10.01mm on middle, 10.84mm on posterior 1/4 line. 5. In the lower jaws, the mean of ridge width was 33.24mm on anterior 1/4, 50.19mm on middle, 59.16mm on posterior 1/4 line and the mean of lingual ridge height was 5.49mm on anterior 1/4, 9.16mm on middle, 16.72mm on posterior 1/4 line. 6. The correlation coefficient(=r) between denture bearing area and A-P ridge length was 0.83 in the upper jaws and 0.75 in the lower jaws. The corelation between denture bearing area and AP ridge length was statistically significant, but, between denture bearing area and A-P ridge length and between A-P ridge length and the most posterior ridge width was not statistically significant in both jaws. 7. Alveolar ridge forms were classified into three(ovoid, "u" shape, and "v"shape) categories. In the upper jaws, ovoid was 66%, "u" shape was 24%, and "v" shape was 10%, in the lower jaws, ovoid was 66.7%, "u" shape was 20%, and "v" shape was 13.3%.