What is a compound Odontoma

Your dentist tells you that you’ve got a compound odontoma. It sounds scary, but while it is a growth, it is treatable. Your dentist might detect the tumors with the x-rays that they take, and usually, it doesn’t cause problems.  Here, you’ll learn what it is, and what your dentist would like to do in most of these cases. 

What Do Odontomas Do? 

Odontomas are tumors that aren’t cancerous, and it is rare, but they don’t cause harm to the body itself. The growths usually replicate the tissues that the teeth are made of, including dentin, enamel, and also pulp, and other tissues. They do grow slowly and occasionally show up in the oral cavity as well. These are usually odontogenic tumors, and usually, they develop between the ages of 14 and 18 years old but can happen at any age. They occur a lot more in females in the upper jaw area. 

While there isn’t an exact cause, they can be associated with infection, trauma, along with inflammation when someone’s young. People with Gardner syndrome or Herman’s syndrome may also be prone to this too since in most cases, this also happens with impacted teeth, and usually, they aren’t fully erupted either. 

Complex Vs. Compound 

There are compound odontomas, which are tooth-like in structure and are more uniform, similar to how normal teeth are, whereas complex odontomas are usually more of a mixture of disorganized masses of tissue. 

Compound ones are twice as likely as the complex ones, and they usually are a small group of teeth on x-rays too. There have also been instances where patients have multiple types of compound odontomas, and they can sometimes be diagnosed by different doctors. 

The diagnosis and Treatment 

Usually, these are only done by dental professionals who are able to find this through an x-ray of their jaw. Why they are benign, it’s recommended that you do get minor surgery if it occurs as well. If a patient has no symptoms and the tumor is still allowing the teeth to come in, the main thing they do at this point is monitor it, and then take action if needed. 

Usually, you have a dentist along with an oral maxillofacial surgeon who will help you with this and will decide if you have surgery or if you just need to monitor this sort of thing. These can be found in routine x-rays, or if the dentist sees something on a routine ex-ray that needs to be explored further. 

The big thing to understand though is that a tumor doesn’t equate to cancer, so you might not need treatment right away. But seeing a dentist regularly will make sure that the gums and teeth are checked for proper oral health, and also the neck and head are too. Oral cancer can occur in these areas, even if the tumors that are found are benign. 

Usually, regular checkups and x-rays do this, and they can take some further steps as needed, which is why you should definitely go in for checkups too and to make sure that you’re taking care of your body as best as you can. There are tons of great ways to prevent this from getting worse, and really just proper monitoring and understanding of these can help the patient understand just what exactly is going on, and also from there help you better get a feel as well for this, and in turn help with making sure that you get the most that you can out of this, and to ensure the proper treatment for this is maintained.