What is the number of the teeth?

Do you know the number of the teeth?

When the hygienist or dentist shows the beginnings of decay on one of the teeth, he indicates it with a number. This is also important so that insurance companies know the teeth for claims or treatment cost estimates. If you are one of those people who do not know the tooth number , we will immediately explain to you why teeth are counted and how it is done using the dental dial.

This article will help you understand dental anatomy a little better. We have written an article that covers the different aspects of tooth anatomy right here: tooth anatomy .

Understanding the quadrants

The dental dial allows us to identify the teeth. To identify the dentition by section and to target a region of several adjacent teeth, according to the number of the teeth , the mouth is divided into 2 sections or arches, each arch is divided into 2 quadrants. Thus, we find 4 quadrants: quadrant 1 at the top on the right, quadrant 2 at the top on the left, quadrant 3 at the bottom on the left and quadrant 4 at the bottom on the right. Each includes 8 permanent teeth: a central incisor, a neighboring lateral incisor, an adjacent canine, 2 premolars and 3 molars.

The actual numbering of the teeth

• The FDI Dental Numbering System : This numbering system divides the mouth into four parts: upper right semi-arch, upper left semi-arch, lower right semi-arch, and lower left semi-arch. This is the most popular tooth numbering system used by French dentists.
• The Universal Dental Numbering System : This is the dental numbering system used in the United States, and it has the advantage of being easy to understand. This system is divided into two parts. Thus, each part (lower and upper) contains 16 teeth.
• The Plamer Dental Numbering System : This system is similar to the FDI system. The mouth is divided into four parts: upper right semi-arch, upper left semi-arch, lower left semi-arch, and lower right semi-arch.

Identify tooth surfaces

The crown of a tooth is small to announce it as a whole, and it is therefore important to be able to talk about a more precise part of it, for example a cavity or other anomaly on one or more surfaces of the same tooth. Moreover, the billing of restorative treatments is done by surface, and this explains why fillings on 2 different premolars can have different prices. To designate the place in question, it is necessary to use the first letter of the surface: distal (D) for the surface of the tooth furthest from the midline, occlusal (O) for the masticatory surface of the molars and premolars, Incisal (I) for the masticatory surface of the anterior teeth, lingual (L) for the surface on the tongue side, mesial (M) for the surface closest to the medial line and buccal (B) for the surface on the cheek side.

We wrote an article where we go over each part of the tooth in detail: enamel, pulp, and dentin. You can find this article right here: diagram of a tooth

There are 20 baby teeth : 8 incisors, 4 canines and 8 molars.

We have written a very comprehensive article on the number of teeth and tooth number which you can find here: tooth number

To fully understand the anatomy of teeth and the mouth there are also two major concepts to understand, that of the dental dial which we have explained here: dental dial

And the concept of dental diagram which is a representation of the entire dentition that we have explained here: dental diagram

If you want to know more about wisdom teeth, we have an article that specifically addresses this topic: wisdom teeth