A preliminary 3-dimensional study of the enamel cap and dentin core of human mandibular first molar

WANG Shu-ming; ZHANG Da-peng; ZHENG Ya-qi; WU Guo-feng

Abstract：AIM:To build up a 3-D model of human mandibular first molar by Micro CT and to reveal its morphological rule for the enamel cap and dentin core.METHODS:20 human mandibular first molars were selected and scanned by Micro CT.The morphological characteristics of enamel cap, dentin core and pulp chamber were meas-ured by the reversed engineering software individually.Both the distance of pulp horn-dentin cusp, the volume and area of each part of tooth were calculated.Statistical tool was applied for the analysis of all data.RESULTS:The vivid 3-dimensional model of enamel cap, dentin core and pulp chamber was successfully reconstructed.There was signifi-cant correlation between the dentin core and pulp chamber for either volume or area (P﹤0.05).The result of two-factor analysis of variance of the distance of pulp horn-dentin cusp showed that the distal lingual dentin cusp>distal buccal dentin cusp>distal dentin cusp>mesial lingual dentin cusp>mesial buccal dentin cusp ( P﹤0.05) .The re-sult of two-factor analysis of variance of the distance of pulp horn-dental cusp showed:distal lingual dental cusp>me-sial lingual distal dental cusp>distal dental cusp>distal buccal dental cusp>mesial buccal dental cusp (P﹤0.05). CONCLUSION:This study obtained the accurate 3-dimensional models of the mandibular first molars, and prelimi-narily summarized the enamel cap and dentin core morphological characteristics.