Introduction

The term ‘Odontome’ was first used by Paul Broca in a paper read before the Academy of Sciences of Paris in 1867 in which, under the title ‘Recherches sur un nouveau groupe de Tumeurs désigné sous le nom d'Odontomes’, he described some ‘of the hard excrescences which hypertrophy and abnormal growth of the tissues produce’. In his Traité des Tumeurs, Broca (1869) published a more complete account of such growths, classifying them under four headings:

1. (1) Odontomes embryoplastiques, or those arising during the early stages of development before the membrana eboris is formed.

2. (2) Odontomes odontoplastiques, or those arising after the formation of the membrana eboris and the formative elements of the tooth.

3. (3) Odontomes coronaires, or those arising during the formation of the crown of the tooth.

4. (4) Odontomes radiculaires, or those arising subsequently to the completion of the crown and therefore only causing a deformity of the root.

The suffix ome or oma, although most widely used to connote neoplasia, as in carcinoma, sarcoma and lipoma, has never been stringently restricted to that meaning. Quite early on, it was also used to connote a swelling, as in granuloma, or what can now be referred to as tumour-like; the word tumour, from simply connoting a swelling, has gradually come to connote neoplasia.

A considerable advance in our knowledge of odontomes was made by J. Bland Sutton (1888a). He said:

In the most extended sense an odontome may be defined as a tumour composed of dental tissues (enamel, dentine and cementum), in varying proportions and different degrees of development, arising from tooth germs, or from teeth still in the process of growth.