Hasan Sabah Hasan et al., Int. J. Res. Pharm. Sci., 2020, 11(4), 5997-6003 ORIGINAL ARTICLE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCES Published by JK Welfare & Pharmascope Foundation Journal Home Page: www.pharmascope.org/ijrps Medline diastema of orthodontic patients - Prevalence and Etiology in Erbil Population - A cross-sectional study Ayshan Kolemen 1 , Hasan Sabah Hasan *1 , Arkan Muslim Al Azzawi 2 1 Department of khanzad polyclinic teaching center, General directorate of hawler, Ministry of health, Kurdistan region, Iraq 2 Department of Babylon university, College of dentistry, Iraq Article History: Received on: 08 Jun 2020 Revised on: 09 Jul 2020 Accepted on: 13 Jul 2020 Keywords: Prevalence, midline diastema, high labial frenum, thumb sucking ABSTRACT To investigate the prevalence and etiological factors that contribute in mid- line diastema in Erbil population among different age groups and genders. A sample of (ex: 1021orthodontic patients (537 males and 484 females) were randomly selected from Erbil population attending to orthodontic depart- ment of khanzad polyclinic teaching center (General directorate of hawler / Ministry of health/ Kurdistan region- Iraq) during 2018-2019 period. Aged (13-35 years) with mean age ± SD was 19.6 ± 4.8 years, with a median of 19 years. The examination included patient history taking, intraoral exam- ination, photograph, intraoral periapical radiography of incisors area and panoramic radiographic. Diastema consider positive when the space between central incisors is 0.5mm and more, width was measured clinically used dig- ital Vernier calipers at one millimeter above the incisors edge. In this study the prevalence of midline diastema was 23.2%. location was in the maxilla (97%), in mandible (1.3%) and in both was (1.7%). The prevalence of midline diastema differs signiϑicantly between the age groups (p < 0.001). The high- est prevalence (55.8%) was among patients aged ≥ 30 years, and it was also high (37.7%) among those aged < 15 years. The prevalence among females (26.4%) was signiϑicantly higher than the prevalence (20.3%) among males (P= 0.020). The main causes of midline diastema in females was thumb suck- ing and missing lateral incisors (14.1% and 12.5% respectively) and in males was high labial frenum and super numerally teeth (39.4% and 30.3% respec- tively). The prevalence of diastema in Erbil City (Kurdistan regional- Iraq) area was 23.2%, the location mostly in maxilla (97%). The prevalence of diastema in females more than males. * Corresponding Author Name: Hasan Sabah Hasan Phone: - Email: hsh.ortho@yahoo.com ISSN: 0975-7538 DOI: https://doi.org/10.26452/ijrps.v11i4.3262 Production and Hosted by Pharmascope.org © 2020 | All rights reserved. INTRODUCTION Diastema in Greek means interval, gap or space between two or more adjacent teeth. Spacing of upper or lower central incisors is commonly known as midline diastema. It has been deϑined as a natural spacing between the central incisors occurring more frequently on the upper teeth (Jacob, 1998). (Keene, 1963) found the prevalence of midline diastema in the full permanent dentition amount- ing to (14.8%) in maxilla, and (1.6%) in case of mandible diastema. According to (Lavelle, 1970) maxillary midline diastema incidence in © International Journal of Research in Pharmaceutical Sciences 5997