Relations and teeth characteristics of maxillary and mandibular molars

Summing up the results of several researches on samples of 4,532 children from Niš, we attempted to comprehend the morphological characteristics of the first and second molars. We thus analyzed the number of cusps, symptoms of reduction, Carabelli's cusp and intercusp pattern of the mandibular molars. Maxillary M1 mainly has four cusps (97.02 to 100%), while M2, which usually has four cusps (70.5 to 76.0%), also has three cusps in a significant number (24.0 to 29.5 %). Mandibular M1 has 5 cusps in 70.5 to 73.48% and 4 cusps ranging from 24.65 to 28%. The presence of 4 cusps is characteristic for M2 (in 89.25 to 95.96%). The reduction process is more characteristic for M2, where hypocone is completely missing in 24.0 to 29.5%, and metacone in just 0.76%; only 1.98% of respondents were without hypocone on M1. The hypoconulid cusp reduction is highly expressed in the mandibular M2 (89.25%), and significantly less in M1 (28%). Carabelli's cusp was recorded on M1 in the range of 31.25 to 46.88%, mostly in the stages II and III. The most common combination of the number of cusps and patterns on M1 is Y5 (in 65.26 to 67.21%), and on M2 it is +4 (in 90.5 to 91.92%). In most of the parameters, our respondents are close to the Western European type