At what age a canine would be considered impacted?

Unerupted canine at 7 years old?

Hello

My daughter has an impacted canine and the orthodontic dr said that we rather not touch it and leave it like that.

She said it is too close to the nose and a very delicate surgery.

Of course i rather not have surgery for my 7 years old daughter but wanted to ask your opinion.

Dental Age 7

Your question relates to the eruption sequence and timing of eruption. Therefore, one need to understand what is considered normal at age 7 in term of the evolution of the dentition.

At age 7, the four lower incisors and the maxillary central incisors (1.1, 2.1) are erupted. Root formation of the maxillary lateral incisors (1.2, 2.2) are well advanced but it is still about 1 year from eruption while the canines (1.3, 2.3) and the premolars are still in the stage of crown completion or just at the beginning of root formation.

So we can not pretend that the canines of your 7 years old daugther are impacted whil it is normal that they are very high and near the nose at this age.

For more information, I recommend that you visit the page “dental age“. The keynote is in french, but most picture are self explanatory.

I hope that help.

Bibliographie:

Contemporary Orthodontics 5th edition, Proffit WR, Fields HW, Sarvers DM, Elsevier 2013, Chapter 3.