Posterior teeth Posterior teeth In dentistry, the term posterior teeth usually refers as a group to the premolars and molars, as distinguished from the anterior teeth, which are the incisors and canine teeth. The distinction is one of anterior (front of the body) versus posterior (rear of the body). The distinction holds in both the upper jaw (maxilla) and lower jaw (mandible). As a rough guide, it can be said that the anterior teeth are tailored to biting (breaking the food into chewable chunks) whereas the posterior teeth are tailored to chewing (comminuting the food into swallowable particles). Anterior teeth are inherently
Impacted wisdom teeth the mandible. Another study on 5000 army recruits found 10,767 impacted wisdom teeth. The frequency of impacted lower third molars has been found to be 72% and the frequency of retained impacted wisdom teeth that are free of disease and symptoms is estimated at 11.6% to 29% which drops with age. The incidence of wisdom tooth removal was estimated to be 4 per 1000 person years in England and Wales prior to the 2000 NICE guidelines. Wisdom teeth have been described in the ancient texts of Plato and Hippocrates. "Teeth of wisdom" being from the Latin, "dentes sapientiæ", which in