Compositional and micromorphological features of hypoplastic enamel in children’s permanent teeth

Abstract

Enamel hypoplasia is the most common disease of hard tooth tissues of non-carious origin emerging before their eruption. It develops as a result of a delayed and perverse function of ameloblasts leading to the violation of the processes of formation and mineralization of tooth protein structures. The clinical manifestations of enamel hypoplasia are spots, defects in the form of pits, cup-shaped depressions, grooves on various surfaces of child’s teeth. The work is devoted to a comparative investigation of microstructural and compositional features of intact and hypoplastic enamel in children’s permanent teeth using analytical scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The hypoplastic enamel is enriched in organic substance and has an irregular structure without keyhole-shaped prismatic structure. Mineral deposition is indicated for hypoplastic enamel including hydroxyapatite with globular structure and calcite and halite, which might have been caused by the violation of extracellular local environment probably due to the enamel hypoplasia development.