Anatomical variations of lingual foramen and it’ s bony canals with cone beam computerised tomography in south indian population – a cross sectional study

Abstract

Aim: The anatomical variations of lingual foramen & its bony canals in three have been observed, analysed on many countries, but no study has been performed in South Indian population yet. The aim of our study was to assess the anatomical variations of lingual foramen and it's bony canals with cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) imaging in South Indian population. Methods: A cross-sectional study included 100 CBCT images of patients. The assessment of presence of the lingual foramen and its bony canals, the locations, sizes, length and angulations were done. The distances between the terminal end of lingual canal at the buccal and lingual side from the inferior border of the mandible and alveolar crest were measured. The effect of patient's gender on the dimensional measurements of the anatomical landmark were also assessed, t test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and pearson's correlation were used for statistical analysis and P value less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: All the 100 CBCT images showed the presence of lingual foramen. Among 100 patients, 52% of them had two foramens in their images. The mean diameters of the upper and lower lingual foramen were 1.12 and 0.9 mm, respectively. Conclusion: This study proves that 3D images of CBCT can detect precise anatomic routes to prevent the complications of procedures carried out in lingual foramen region.