BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Oral. Health
Sec. Oral Health Promotion
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/froh.2025.1522642
Visualization of oral function during playing a wind instrument by a lateral dental impression: a proof-of-concept investigation
Provisionally accepted
Mariko Hattori1
Gen Tanabe2Sebastian B. M. Patzelt3Dirk Schulze4Yuka I. Sumita5*Noriyuki Wakabayashi1- 1Tokyo Institute of Science, Tokyo, Japan
- 2School of Dentistry, Meikai University, Sakado, Japan
- 3Private dental clinic, Dres. Patzelt, Zimmern o. R., Germany
- 4Digital Diagnostic Center, Freiburg, Germany
- 5Nippon Dental University, Tokyo, Japan
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Embouchure describes the interaction of the teeth, lips, tongue, buccal mucosa, and surrounding muscles when playing woodwind and brass instruments. In dental practice, impression material is used to capture the oral structure and function. In this proof-of-concept investigation, embouchure was examined using a silicone-based dental impression material. The participants were 1 oboe player, 1 alto saxophone player, and 4 tenor saxophone players. Four of the participants were amateurs and 2 were professionals. The dental impression material was mixed and inserted onto the buccal aspect of the upper molars. The musicians blew test tones and maintained embouchure for 30 s while a lateral embouchure impression was taken. The hardened material was removed and scanned using conebeam computed tomography. The three-dimensional surface data of the impression were exported, and the mean thickness was analyzed. The impressions showed the space between the alveolar and buccal mucosae. The mean thickness ± standard deviation of the impressions was 2.35 ± 0.85 mm. The oboist showed the smallest thickness, while the tenor saxophonists showed the greatest thickness. The method enabled visualization of the unique morphology of each participant. The results suggest that embouchure can be objectively evaluated using the presented technique. Making embouchure impressions to assess oral problems should enable dentists to evaluate changes in music playing resulting from oral problems or for their treatment. Further studies in a larger population are needed to generalize the results.
Keywords: Dentistry, teeth, Wind instrument, Brass instrument, dental impression Brief Research Report
Received: 12 Dec 2024; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hattori, Tanabe, Patzelt, Schulze, Sumita and Wakabayashi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yuka I. Sumita, Nippon Dental University, Tokyo, Japan
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.