BSc Dentistry Oral Biology - Essay Example

Background perspective Congenital anomalies of teeth and other organs of orofacial region are not very rare, thus the interest of researchers to these problem has never weakened. Furthermore, when new medical interventions were implemented into the dentistry (e.g. dental implants) the attention to this problem was reconditioned even amongst general public. By the assessment of some experts the prevalence of hypodontia could be quite high - in the range of several percents. The United Kingdom is not an exclusion, hypodontia in up to 7.

0% of the UK population. There is was demonstrated that hyposontia could be associated with other congenital conditions, e.g. with ectodermal dysplasias, Down syndrome, Rieger syndrome etc. Thus Rieger syndrome is characterised with combination of hypodontia, craniofacial malformationa and eye abnormalities. This circumstance allows using the presence of hypodontia as the indirect indicator of genetic disorders. The diagnostics of hypodontia is quite simple; nevertheless, this condition is often neglected by patient’s parents.

There is evidence that defects in teeth development and their absence could influence on the function of chewing, cause psychological problems. Information search in the Medline was performed by the following strategy: “Anodontia"[MeSH] Field: All Fields, Limits: Publication Date from 2005/01 to 2005/12, Humans”. 59 results were retrieved after the search but only one article published in Oral Diseases was selected for further analysis and reporting in mini poster. Hypodontia and associated dental anomalies (by the article “Clinical features of hypodontia and associated dental anomalies: a retrospective study” written by Kırzıog˘lu et al.) Introduction.

The article published in the Oral Diseases is dedicated to the pertinent problem of hypodontia associated dental anomalies. There is well known hypodontia is one of the most frequent dental anomalies, e.g. British investigators (Nunn et al., 2003) stated that hypodontia occurs in up to 7% of the UK population and this condition has even higher prevalence in the patients with ectodermal dysplasias, Down syndrome and palate or lip clefts. The article selected for mini-poster presentation was prepared by the group of Turkish authors (Kırzıog˘lu et al.) conducted the retrospective study on the prevalence of this pathologic state amongst population of their country.

They designed their research as a retrospective cohort study where following goal was determined “to investigate the characteristics of tooth absence and associated dental anomalies among the patients attending to or referred to … [my omitting] paediatric dentistry clinic” (Kırzıog˘lu et al., 2005; p. 399). The article has classic structural elements: the introduction, the description of subjects and methods used in the study, the section of results, discussion and conclusion. The authors used 22 references dated in the frame 1970-2004. Methods. The experimental protocol developed for 192 children with congenitally missing teeth included clinical and radiographic tests.

Exclusion criteria were presented by the anamnestic data about the possibility of teeth loosing due to trauma or extraction. Missing teeth were assessed accordingly to their types, localisations in dental arches. Results. After conducting appropriate statistical analysis the following important findings of the research were reported: 1. There are no statistically significant differences in the prevalence of hypodontia dependently on gender or localisation of lesion. Nevertheless bilateral hypodontia (73.2%) was more common than unilateral hypodontia (see Fig. 1). 2.

The third molar was most frequently affected (38,4%) whereas they were followed by the lower second premolars (17.7%), upper lateral incisors (14.7%) and upper second premolars (9.3%) (see fig.2). 3. The majority of the hypodontic patients and their parents were not aware of their missing teeth. Discussion: The most significant findings are related to the fact of poor awareness of hypodontic patients and their parents about missed teeth and their poor motivation to treat this condition. We can see from data represented in the artcile that the early diagnostics and health promotion are necessary elements in the management of such congenital dental anomalies as hypodontia.

Further researches could be required for achieving this aim. Figure 1 Distribution of missing teeth in relation to their symmetrical situations in dental arches (a) upper jaw (b) lower jaw Figure 2. The case of hypodontia References: 1. Kirzioglu Z. et al. (2005) Clinical features of hypodontia and associated dental anomalies: a retrospective study. Oral Dis. Vol. 6 pp. 399-404. 2. Nunn JH et al. (2003) The interdisciplinary management of hypodontia: background and role of paediatric dentistry.

Br Dent J. Vol. 194 No. 5 pp. 245-251.