Meta-analysis of the prevalence of tooth wear in primary dentition

Authors:

ABSTRACT

Aim

To conduct a meta-analysis of all the studies published in literature over the past three decades on the prevalence of
dental erosion in preschool children.

Methods

The Pubmed data base revealed only one systematic review on
the prevalence of tooth wear in children up to 5 years old. The search included works published from January 1982 to September 2012,
using the following combinations of keywords: 1) "dental erosion" AND "children"; 2) "dental erosion in primary dentition"; 3) "dental"
AND "attrition" AND "prevalence". The inclusion criteria for papers on tooth wear were the deciduous dentition observed only on the
palatal and buccal sides with the distinction of erosion, attrition and abrasion. We took into consideration only randomized control trials.
We excluded articles not written in English, case reports, historical and forensic studies, in vitro and in vivo studies. In case of doubt
and/or when an abstract was not available, the full text copy of the article was examined. The first search on Pubmed revealed 29
articles, the same found in the study of Kreulen [2010], however we selected only multicentric studies focused on children of age below
5 years old, in which only the primary dentition (D) and only anterior teeth (incisors) were considered.

Results

Both forest plot and
scatter plot showed the prevalence of dental erosion in primary dentition, and that older children had a more severe dental erosion.

Conclusion

Dental erosion should be considered a paediatric dentistry pathological entity as well as dental caries, and it can be
related to more severe systemic diseases such as Gastroesophageal reflux disease. In addition, taking care of these little patients is
important because they might suffer ipersentiveness, and also pulpal pathology caused by the typical structure of deciduous teeth,
where the pulp cavity is wide and close to the dentine and the enamel.

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