Tooth Gemination is a fairly rare phenomenon whereby it appears that two teeth developed from one. Stated another way, in gemination, two teeth appear to develop one from immature tooth bud. In our office, we like to document and photograph clinical scenarios of educational benefit. So when we saw this, we jumped to document this extensively:
Photograph and X-ray of Tooth Gemination
The following photo is from a 25 year old female:
Gemination of a lower right second premolar. Photo Dr. Nicholas Calcaterra.
Here you can see the small tooth emerging between the two premolars. It looks like she has an extra tooth. But on analysis of the x-ray, you can see the “tooth” originates from the root of the second premolar.
X-ray showing the gemination of the same tooth seen in the above photo.
The x-ray shows that the “tooth” has its own enamel, dentin, and very likely its own pulp!
Tooth gemination (along with the similar clinical condition of fusion) is exceedingly rare in molars and premolars.
