On the Morphology of Occlusal Grooves of the Deciduous Teeth and their Measurement

Hitherto, studies dealing with the morphology of grooves seen on the occlusal surface of the tooth have been mainly conducted on their cross sections and their classification is made solely on this basis. For this reason, one may safely state that their measurement is still a wholy unexplored field. A detailed measurement of these occlusal grooves first began with AWAZAWA and his collaborators and measurements of the occlusal grooves of the permanent teeth have been previously published by AWAZAWA et al. (1965, 1966) and AWAZAWA (1969). The present study is concerned with the measurement of the occlusal grooves of the deciduous teeth, using a sample of 8 deciduous ones. The paucity of material is explained by a regrettable incident of the radical student movement a few years ago, which scattered most of the material accumulated.