Mental Foramen

Mental foramen is one of the most important and studied foramen’s of the mandible. The mandibular foramen is an opening seen on the medial ( internal ) aspect of the mandible which leads into a funnel like mandibular canal,that opens at the mental foramen on the anterolateral surface of the mandible. The mandibular nerve passes through this canal, travels obliquely forward and takes a turn from the incisal region to reach the mental foramen and exit as inferior alveolar nerve and vessels. It is this inferior alveolar nerve that branches into the mental nerve which would provide sensory innervation the skin of the chin, the gingiva and mucosa in the region of anterior teeth, lower lip. It is of paramount importance that the surgeons know of

There are various positions under which the location of the mental foramen can be classified such as :- at the apex of the first pemolar, between the apices of the first and the second premolar, at the apex of the second premolar, between the apices of the seconf premolar and first molar, on the mesial aspect of the first molar. A study was conducted amongst turkish population by Gungor. K et al to investigate the most common position of the mental foramen. The sample size consisted of three hundred and sixty one OPG’s and the result inferred was that the most common position of the mental foramen was between the first and the second premolar ( 71.5% ) . 90.4% of patients showed a symmetry with respect to the position on the left and right side of the mandible. Similarly a study was conducted amongst the saudi population by kamram Bokhari et al with a sample size of nine hundred OPG’s. the most common position concluded was between the two premolars on bot the sides ( 72% )

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:
I. To assess the positioning of the mental foramen most frequently seen within Indian population along the horizontal axis via panoramic radiographs.
II. To analogize the positioning of the mental foramen on both the