Dental-facial Development

Janna Waltimo-Sirén DDS, PhD
University lecturer, docent, Department of Orthodontics

The interests of the group cover a variety of aspects related to orthodontics. Our goal is to increase knowledge of the normal and abnormal development of teeth, occlusion, face and head, our particular emphasis being focused on aberrations that are caused by inherited diseases of the connective tissue.

One of those diseases, Osteogenesis imperfecta, widely affects the structure of teeth and the morphology of the face and skull. Our aim is to study these aberrations in depth in a large patient material to better understand which mechanisms either directly through the changes in collagen or secondarily by alternating the functional matrices may lead to the observed characteristics in size and shape of the patients´dental-facial components. In an ongoing project we analyze longitudinally the anatomical relationship between the cervical vertebrae and the skull base in normal individuals and in Osteogenesis imperfecta patients in order to elucidate the nature and timing of the development of basilar pathology.

Connective tissue diseases also appear to affect the timing of dental development, which is one of our special interests. This matter is being analyzed in Osteogenesis imperfecta patients with special emphasis on different types of the disease and possible effects of their bisphosphonate treatment. Timing of dental development also is important in forensic medicine as a tool for age assessment. In a recently started project we aim to clarify the schedule of dental development in Somalese with known chronological age in order to create control data that can be used for age assessment of refugees originating in that area.

Group members:
Janna Waltimo-Sirén, DDS, PhD
Heidi Arponen, DDS, PhD student
Mari Metsäniitty, DDS, PhD student