Measured diagram
How can a dentist tell wear from grinding apart from wear from acid?
Two close-ups with a 1 mm scale. Left: the edges of an upper and a lower front tooth have ground against each other; they are flat and sharp-edged, with dentine showing in the middle, and they meet exactly. Right: acid has dissolved a back tooth around an old filling, so the tooth surface has receded and rounded and the filling stands proud of it. These are the classic signs; most worn teeth show more than one cause.
What the drawing is measured from
- European consensus report on erosive tooth wear: attrition gives flat, sharp-bordered, glossy facets that match the opposing tooth; erosion gives flattening, cupping and concavities wider than deep, often with an intact rim at the gum margin; abrasion lies at the gum line, its upper part cutting into enamel at a right angle and its lower part running out onto the root. DOI 1
- An expert review: where attrition exposes dentine, it stays flat and in one plane with the enamel, and shiny, well-defined facets are a sign that it is active. DOI 2
- The teeth are the site's measured upper central incisor; a lower central incisor traced from Wheeler's Dental Anatomy (11th edition, Fig 7.4) and scaled to its Table 7.1, crown 9.5 mm and root 12.5 mm, its enamel and pulp representative; and an upper second premolar traced from Wheeler (Figs 9.17 and 9.20). How deep the facets are, how far the acid has thinned the tooth and how proud the filling stands are drawn as representative amounts, not measurements of one patient.
Use this diagram
Free to use, including commercially, with credit.
This diagram is published under CC BY 4.0. You may reproduce it in articles, teaching material, presentations and patient information, print or online, without asking. The one condition is that you credit Dr. Khalid Aletaibi and link back to this page.
It is published this way on purpose. The measurement in this drawing is not something the people selling the treatment tend to publish, so it is more useful spread than kept.
Credit line
Grinding meets flat, acid rounds. Dr. Khalid Aletaibi, CC BY 4.0. https://khalidaletaibi.com/en/diagrams/lesion-facets-filling
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Grinding meets flat, acid rounds. <a href="https://khalidaletaibi.com/en/diagrams/lesion-facets-filling">Dr. Khalid Aletaibi</a>,
<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY 4.0</a>
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