Abstract

The anterior mandibular body is an anatomical area that is often subjected to surgery such as for installation of osseointegrated implants, mentoplasty, genioplasty, fractures, among others. The presence of vessels that penetrates through foraminas at its midline from the lingual table has been described. Tooth loss in the anterior mandibular zone may influence the size of the foramina and canals due to the atrophy of incisors vessels that originates from the inferior alveolar artery. The aim was to evaluate the relationship between presence and absence of remaining teeth in group V, with the presence and morphometry of foramina and canals located in proximity to the mental spines. We studied 95 dry human mandibles with indeterminate sex and age. We measured the area of the foraminas and the length of the canals using the program Photoshop CS3 Extended. We obtained a total of 53 dentate and 42 edentulous mandibles in group V. In 95.7% of the sample had the presence of at least one foramina relative to the mental spines. The foramina that was found more often, tended to be upper to the superior mental spines, in a total of 75 mandibles; lower to the inferior mental spines in 72 mandibles and between the mental spines in 26 mandibles. There was no association between the presence and absence of teeth versus the frequency of the foramina in the three positions established. It was seen that the foramina lower to the inferior mental spine had a greater diameter in dentate mandibles (p-value = 0.0194) and the canal upper to the superior mental spines was significantly longer in the edentulous mandibles (p-value = 0.079).