Sir, a 56-year-old male patient reporting for a routine dental check-up revealed right upper central and lateral incisors that had interchanged their positions (Fig. 1). The lateral incisor was slightly malformed (increased mesio-distal and cervico-incisal crown width) and the patient was totally unaware of the condition. An intraoral periapical radiograph revealed transposition of the upper right central and lateral incisors (Fig. 2). An incomplete dens in dente was observed in relation to the lateral incisor. Since the patient was not concerned with aesthetics and because of financial constraints no treatment was instituted.
Transposition has been described as an interchange of the position of permanent teeth and is considered to be a relatively rare dental anomaly. It was defined by Peck et al.1 as the positional interchange of two adjacent teeth, particularly of the roots, or the development or eruption of a tooth in a position occupied normally by a non-adjacent tooth. The maxillary canine is the most commonly involved tooth1,2,3,4 where in most of the cases it changes its eruptive place with a lateral incisor or a first premolar. The incidence of tooth transposition has been reported to be about 0.4%.2 Many articles have been published on the transposition of the maxillary canine with other teeth but to the best of our knowledge, only eight cases of transposition of a maxillary central incisor with a lateral incisor have been reported.
References
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Turkkahraman H, Sayin M D, Yilmax H H . Maxillary canine transposition to incisor site: a rare condition. Angle Orthod 2005; 75: 284–287.
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Sholapurkar, A. Incisor transposition. Br Dent J 204, 598 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2008.473
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2008.473