Abstract
Tooth morphology is the most important scientific aspect of dental medicine in regards to the treatment and study of teeth attrition relating to the absence of teeth due to dental caries or the occlusion of teeth due to external force. Most of the studies have focused on the external morphology in cutting teeth regardless of sex and age. However, the importance of internal morphology in the treatment of damaged teeth has been increased. Therefore, this study established the measurement criteria for the morphology of the mandibular first premolar which had never been presented, in order to investigate the external and internal morphologies of mandibular first premolars, and introduced a non-destructive method such as a microcomputed tomogrphy. Mandibular first premolars in superlative state were taken from molars of middle aged males and females and used as specimens for this study. Criteria relating to the internal and external morphology measurements were established to quantify the length of the teeth in identical state. Two dimensional image data for the selected mandibular first premolar were obtained by taking the image of each O.022mm section, which is perpendicular to the vertical direction using the microcomputed tomography. The Vworks program was applied to measure the length of each morphological part according to the set measurement criteria. These measured data were compared with the data presented by G. V. Black and the internal and external morphologies of the teeth of middle aged Koreans were also compared according to gender. In addition, the methodology for measurement of the mandibular first premolar was presented and according to this, the standardized mandibular first premolars of middle aged Korean males and females were made by using a rapid prototyping system.
