Reliability of horizontal and vertical tube shift techniques in the localisation of supernumerary teeth.
AIM
To assess the reliability of the vertical tube shift technique (VTST) and horizontal tube shift technique (HTST) for the localisation of unerupted supernumerary teeth (ST) in the anterior region of the maxilla.


METHODS
A convenience sample of 83 patients who attended a major teaching hospital because of unerupted ST was selected. Only non-syndromic patients with ST and who had complete clinical and radiographic and surgical records were included in the study. Ten examiners independently rated the paired set of radiographs for each technique. Chi-square test, paired t test and kappa statistics were employed to assess the intra- and inter-examiner reliability.


RESULTS
Paired sets of 1660 radiographs (830 pairs for each technique) were available for the analysis. The overall sensitivity for VTST and HTST was 80.6 and 72.1% respectively, with slight inter-examiner and good intra-examiner reliability. Statistically significant differences were evident between the two localisation techniques (p < 0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
Localisation of unerupted ST using VTST was more successful than HTST in the anterior region of the maxilla.
['Mallineni|S K|SK|', 'Anthonappa|R P|RP|', 'King|N M|NM|']
D016009:Chi-Square Distribution D002983:Clinical Competence D005260:Female D006801:Humans D007180:Incisor D008297:Male D008437:Maxilla D019252:Radiography, Dental, Digital D011862:Radiography, Panoramic D015203:Reproducibility of Results D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity D019228:Tooth Crown D014092:Tooth Root D014096:Tooth, Supernumerary D014097:Tooth, Unerupted
Localisation Supernumerary teeth Radiographs