{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,27]],"date-time":"2026-02-27T05:09:36Z","timestamp":1772168976978,"version":"3.50.1"},"update-to":[{"DOI":"10.12688\/f1000research.74434.1","type":"new_version","label":"New version","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,30]],"date-time":"2022-11-30T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1669766400000}}],"reference-count":31,"publisher":"F1000 Research Ltd","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,30]],"date-time":"2022-11-30T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1669766400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["f1000research.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["F1000Res"],"abstract":"<ns3:p>\n                    <ns3:bold>Background<\/ns3:bold>\n                    : Mental foramen (MF) and its accessories are the important anatomical considerations while placing implants or doing surgical procedures in and around the mandibular premolar region. This study aimed to evaluate the shape, size, and location of mental foramen in dentulous and edentulous patients among the Saudi population using 3D cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT).\n                  <\/ns3:p>\n                  <ns3:p>\n                    <ns3:bold>Methods<\/ns3:bold>\n                    : In this retrospective study, CBCT scans that were taken between 2015 and 2020 from Riyadh Elm University were retrieved. A total of 180 samples of CBCT (90 dentate and 90 edentulous) were analyzed. Prevalence of different horizontal positions of the mental foramen (P1 to P6) and other additive parameters like the distance from mental foramen to alveolar crest and inferior border of the mandible, along with the mental foramen angle was assessed. The difference in the mental foramen location among dentate and edentulous subjects was assessed. Gender and age variation also was assessed. All the data were statistically analyzed using SPSS.\n                  <\/ns3:p>\n                  <ns3:p>\n                    <ns3:bold>Results:<\/ns3:bold>\n                    The predominant horizontal position is P4 followed by P3 (59\n                  <\/ns3:p>\n                  <ns3:p>% in males and 63 % in females at P4, and 15 % each in males and females at P3, respectively). The horizontal position of the mental foramen and gender showed a statistical significance difference, especially at the P3B, P5, and P4 positions. Moreover, a statistically significant difference was seen in the mental foramen to the mandibular inferior border of the mandible (MF_MSB) and the width of mental foramen in the transverse section (MFW). Comparison of the mental foramen among dentate and edentulous subjects showed a statistically significant difference. There was a change in the mental foramen with age.<\/ns3:p>\n                  <ns3:p>\n                    <ns3:bold>Conclusions:<\/ns3:bold>\n                    Based on the methodology and sample of this study, it can be concluded that the edentulism only reduced the dimension of the mental foramen opening.\n                  <\/ns3:p>","DOI":"10.12688\/f1000research.74434.2","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,30]],"date-time":"2022-11-30T13:19:43Z","timestamp":1669814383000},"page":"916","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.12688\/f1000research.crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Evaluation of shape, size, and location of mental foramen in dentulous and edentulous among Saudi population using 3D cone-beam computed tomography"],"prefix":"10.12688","volume":"11","author":[{"given":"Mlook Ghazi","family":"AlOtaibi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ahmad","family":"Tawfig","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Hassan Mohamed","family":"Abouelkheir","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"2560","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,30]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1133-1139","DOI":"10.1007\/s00276-018-2043-z","article-title":"Assessment of morphological and anatomical characteristics of mental foramen using cone beam computed tomography.","volume":"40","author":"S Goyushov","year":"2018","journal-title":"Surg Radiol Anat."},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"403-405","DOI":"10.1007\/s00276-014-1347-x","article-title":"Bilateral absence of mental foramen in a living human subject.","volume":"37","author":"G Lauhr","year":"2015","journal-title":"Surg Radiol Anat."},{"key":"ref3","first-page":"126-132","article-title":"Assessment of location and anatomical characteristics of mental foramen, anterior loop and mandibular incisive canal using cone beam computed tomography.","volume":"13","author":"M Panjnoush","year":"2016","journal-title":"J Dent (Tehran)."},{"key":"ref4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1933-1943","DOI":"10.1902\/jop.2006.060197","article-title":"The mental foramen and nerve: clinical and anatomical factors related to dental implant placement: a literature review.","volume":"77","author":"G Greenstein","year":"2006","journal-title":"J. Periodontol."},{"key":"ref5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"341-343","DOI":"10.1038\/sj.dmfr.4600388","article-title":"Radiographic study of the mental foramen in a selected Saudi population.","volume":"27","author":"N Al Jasser","year":"1998","journal-title":"Dentomaxillofac Radiol."},{"key":"ref6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"383-386","DOI":"10.1016\/S0099-2399(06)81224-0","article-title":"The mental foramen: Part III. 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A retrospective CBCT study.","volume":"29","author":"H Al-Mahalawy","year":"2017","journal-title":"Saudi Dent J."},{"key":"ref13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"98-104","DOI":"10.1080\/00016357.2017.1387813","article-title":"3D CBCT morphometric assessment of mental foramen in Arabic population and global comparison: imperative for invasive and non-invasive procedures in mandible.","volume":"76","author":"M Alam","year":"2018","journal-title":"Acta Odontol Scand."},{"key":"ref14","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"298-301","DOI":"10.15537\/smj.2019.3.23597","article-title":"Analysis of mandibular premolar root position in relation to adjacent cortical plates and mental foramen using cone beam computed tomography in the Saudi population.","volume":"40","author":"M Aldosimani","year":"2019","journal-title":"Saudi Med J."},{"key":"ref15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"365-370","DOI":"10.2485\/jhtb.25.365","article-title":"Mental foramen position using 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Anat."}],"container-title":["F1000Research"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/11-916\/v2\/xml","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/11-916\/v2\/pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/11-916\/v2\/iparadigms","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,30]],"date-time":"2025-12-30T10:34:09Z","timestamp":1767090849000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/11-916\/v2"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,30]]},"references-count":31,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.12688\/f1000research.74434.2","relation":{"has-version":[{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.12688\/f1000research.74434.1","asserted-by":"subject"}],"has-review":[{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.139524.r417388","asserted-by":"subject"},{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.139524.r426775","asserted-by":"subject"},{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.139524.r439584","asserted-by":"subject"},{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.139524.r439584","asserted-by":"object"},{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.139524.r426775","asserted-by":"object"},{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.139524.r417388","asserted-by":"object"}]},"ISSN":["2046-1402"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2046-1402","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,30]]},"assertion":[{"value":"Indexed","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/11-916\/v2#article-reports","order":0,"name":"referee-status","label":"Referee status","group":{"name":"current-referee-status","label":"Current Referee Status"}},{"value":"10.5256\/f1000research.78190.r147200, Mohammed Mashyakhy, Department of Restorative Dental Sciences, College of Dentistry, Jazan University, Jazan, 05 Sep 2022, version 1, 2 not approved","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/11-916\/v1#referee-response-147200","order":0,"name":"referee-response-147200","label":"Referee Report","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"<b>Salim S<\/b>; \n<i>Posted: 05 Oct 2022<\/i>;  The introduction is too long and not related fully to the subject, its very wide, need to be concise on the topic  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;deleted most of the irrelevant aspect and presented only required (reduced to more than 50%) &nbsp; Material and methods were not clear and confusing  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;many of the irrelevant aspects are removed and made it easily understandable. &nbsp; The results are ok&nbsp; &nbsp; Discussion is not very clear and direct  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;made it almost clear and to the point &nbsp; There are some studies from Saudi population using CBCT not mentioned  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;thanks for the observation, we did not include them since they were assessed in OPG &nbsp; I recommend the authors to focus on the aim and be concise especially in the material and methods  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;removed unnecessary aspects and only relevant information in the materials and methods kept.","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/11-916\/v2#referee-comment-8867","order":1,"name":"referee-comment-8867","label":"Referee Comment","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"10.5256\/f1000research.78190.r147197, Astha Chaudhry, Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Faculty of Dental Sciences, Shree Guru Gobind Singh Tricentenary (SGT) University, Gurugram, Haryana, 13 Sep 2022, version 1, 2 not approved","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/11-916\/v1#referee-response-147197","order":2,"name":"referee-response-147197","label":"Referee Report","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"<b>Salim S<\/b>; \n<i>Posted: 05 Oct 2022<\/i>;  The title of manuscript is &quot;&nbsp;Evaluation of shape, size, and location of mental foramen in dentulous and edentulous among Saudi population using 3D cone-beam computed tomography&quot;. However, I do not find any mention of shape of mental foramen or its alterations in the introduction or methodology. The location of foramen is extensively described and for size only the horizontal width(MFW) has been considered.  \n<b>Response:<\/b> word shape is removed, irrelevant discussion on other factors removed and we intended to consider only horizontal width, which was not discussed in the Saudi population till now properly. &nbsp; The Introduction is haphazard with lots of irrelevant and redundant and repetitive information.&nbsp;  \n<b>Response:&nbsp;<\/b>all irrelevant materials have been removed.  Some factual errors are also present like it is mentioned &quot;Mental foramen is typically located on&nbsp;\n<b>lingual&nbsp;<\/b>side&quot;. It is located buccally. And &quot;the anterior canal and submandibular fossa\n<b>&nbsp;convexity<\/b>&quot; , the submandibular gland fossa will show concavity etc.  \n<b>Response:&nbsp;<\/b>corrected. the second sentence containing this information is removed. &nbsp; The authors have tried to add too much information related to mental foramen in the introduction which is not relevant to the objectives of the study.  \n<b>Response:&nbsp;<\/b>taken out, only required aspects are there. &nbsp; It is mentioned that &quot;the high image quality of bone tissue and anatomical structure features provided by CBCT analysis reduces the risk of lesions in the lower alveolar vascular nerve bundle&quot;. This is difficult to comprehend, as the good image quality of CBCT cannot reduce the risk of lesions in nerve. Lots of rephrasing and paraphrasing is required.  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;removed the word lesion and written as injury. &nbsp; Regarding the methodology, few basic things are not clear: &nbsp;  What type of edentulous patients have been included in the study, is it completely edentulous or partially edentulous and if partially edentulous, does it involve premolars??  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;dentate subjects; and group 2: edentulous subjects (unilateral or bilateral missing premolars). &nbsp; If its completely edentulous or partially edentulous involving any one or both the premolars, how did one assess the horizontal position P1 to P6 as the reference premolars\/teeth are absent and if the edentulism does not involve the premolars, how does it affect the mental foramen? Since, the authors have claimed at multiple points in the manuscript that the USP of the study is comparison between dentate and edentulous populations, it is all the more important to clarify these in the methodology.-not completely edentulous, partially edentulous. Position P1 TO P6&nbsp; as taken as approximate in case of absence of premolars  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;edentulous area involves premolars only. &nbsp; What FOV scans were included in the study? Must be mentioned in the inclusion criteria.  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;mentioned &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; As the authors claimed that they have evaluated both the sides in one patient scan, means in total they have evaluated 360 mental foramina. There can be variations in the size, shape, and position of foramen on both the sides, also the presence or absence of teeth. Thus, how can one assess the association of the horizontal position of foramen with gender (table 2), the horizontal position of foramen between dentate and edentulous (table 3), and parameters in Table 6 and table 7. Was the average of the right and left side taken into consideration? It has not been clearly explained in the methodology. It is difficult to take out any relevant inference through these tables. I believe the calculations should be made for 360 foramina evaluated rather than 180 cases as there can be individual variations on both the sides.  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;as one can see - a total of 360 scans were included and analyzed (180 numbers of CBCT) &nbsp; The authors have calculated mental foramen angle. It is not explained how?&nbsp;  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;as per the previous author's reference (Zaman et al. 2016)  It would have been better if some images, pictures are provided how the measurements will be taken. Also highlight what is the significance of calculating this angle.  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;the significance of calculating the angle is for a better location. &nbsp; The measurements mentioned in the methodology mention the distance between mental foramen and alveolar crest in vertical position which is same as MF-MIB and similarly MF MSB and distance between foramen and lower cortical mandibular bone.  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;since these readings are repeated this is eliminated from the methods. &nbsp; Why is only the horizontal width of the foramen considered and not vertical height? The authors have mentioned significant change in MFW in the edentulous cases, what is the reason? nothing has been explained clearly.  \n<b>Response:<\/b> we intended to locate the mental foramen through horizontal width since the vertical position variations according to age and edentulism are a proven fact. &nbsp;   The Discussion needs to be more focused. &nbsp; The conclusion is not concrete and not specific. The vertical position variations according to age and edentulism are a proven fact. The reasons for the change in horizontal positions and its association with edentulism is not clear.  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;conclusion changed.  The size variation is mentioned in the conclusion in the abstract but not adequately discussed in the discussion section.  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;included.  The shape variation has not been discussed at all, hence it should be removed from the title and aim and objectives.  \n<b>Response:<\/b>&nbsp;removed.","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/11-916\/v2#referee-comment-8868","order":3,"name":"referee-comment-8868","label":"Referee Comment","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"10.5256\/f1000research.139524.r417388, Svetlana Antic, Radiology, University of Belgrade Faculty of Dental Medicine (Ringgold ID: 119082), Belgrade, Serbia, 03 Oct 2025, version 2, indexed","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/11-916\/v2#referee-response-417388","order":4,"name":"referee-response-417388","label":"Referee Report","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"10.5256\/f1000research.139524.r426775, Junaid Ahmed, Department of Oral Medicine & Radiology, Manipal College of Dental Sciences, Mangalore, Karnataka, 12 Nov 2025, version 2, indexed","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/11-916\/v2#referee-response-426775","order":5,"name":"referee-response-426775","label":"Referee Report","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"10.5256\/f1000research.139524.r439584, Ashwin Shetty Yermal, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Eastern Province, 30 Dec 2025, version 2, indexed","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/11-916\/v2#referee-response-439584","order":6,"name":"referee-response-439584","label":"Referee Report","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"The author(s) declared that no grants were involved in supporting this work","order":7,"name":"grant-information","label":"Grant Information"},{"value":"This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.","order":0,"name":"copyright-info","label":"Copyright"}]}}