Gender Differences in the Morphological Characteristics of the Nasopalatine Canal and the Anterior Maxillary Bone - CBCT Study

The aim of this study was to investigate the gender differences in anatomical and morphometric characteristics of the nasopalatine canal–NPC and horizontal dimensions of the anterior maxilla by CBCT, which could be of interest for clinicians who perform implant surgery in this region. A retrospective quantitative study was conducted using CBCT images from the radiological database of the Department of Dentistry (Kragujevac) on a total of 113 participants (63 male and 50 female). The results of our study confirmed no gender difference in the distribution of NPC type, while the most frequent NPC type confirmed gender variations (cylindrical in females, funnel in males), but the lowest incidence of NPC type in both males and females was banana-type. The NPC length was significantly increased in males with no significant gender impact on medio-lateral (M-L) and antero-posterior (A-P) dimensions of the incisive foramen, as well as the A-P dimension of the nasal foramen. Linear regression analysis revealed the significant correlation between the M-L dimension of incisive foramen and the anterior maxilla diameter at all bone levels for males, and between the NPC length and the anterior maxilla diameter only in females at the level D. Also, both NPC type and gender significantly affected the correlations between the estimated parameters (females showed significant correlation only in funnel NPC type at the level D, while males showed significant correlation in both funnel NPC type at the level A, but also in hourglass-type at the level D). Those results imply significant gender impact in planning of various surgical interventions in the anterior maxilla region.