Prevalence and microscopic features of enamel pearls from permanent human molars

ABSTRACT

Enamel pearls are ectopic structures observed mainly on the roots of permanent teeth and couldbe related to periodontal diseases. Aim: To evaluate the prevalence of enamel pearls in extractedhuman molars and characterize their structures using light and scanning electron microscopy.Methods: The study comprised 2,201 extracted human permanent molars. The teeth wereanalyzed and classified according to morphological features. The presence, location and shapeof enamel pearls were investigated. Fifteen human molars with enamel pearls were embeddedin acrylic resin and observed by light microscopy. Results: Seventy-one enamel pearls wereidentified on third molar root. Microscopically, most pearls were composed of prismatic irregularenamel and normal dentin. The dentinoenamel junction presented an irregular course. Thenumber of dentinal tubules was normal and they presented curvature to continue within the rootdentin of the carrier tooth. Dentinal tubules below the enamel pearls were closer to each other.Conclusions: Scanning electron microscopic analysis revealed that the enamel pearls weresimilar to coronal enamel.