Abstract
The purpose of this study was to associate oral hygiene frequency and presence of visible biofilm in the primary dentition. The sample consisted of 90 children, aged up to 4 years old, outpatients of the University Hospital of the Rio de Janeiro State University. The examinations were carried out in a dental office by a single trained examiner who was aided by an assistant. The parents answered a structured questionnaire about oral hygiene methods and frequency. Two biofilm indices, one simplified (BF1) and the other conventional (BF2), were used. BF1 classifies biofilm as absent, thin or thick, in anterior and/or posterior teeth, and provides a score for the patient, whereas BF2 classifies biofilm as absent or present, provides scores for three surfaces of each tooth and the final score is the percentage of tooth surfaces with biofilm. More than half of the parents (51 - 56.7%) reported they cleaned their child's teeth at least twice a day, while 7 (7.8%) had never cleaned their child's teeth. BF1 revealed that 12.2% (11) of the children had no visible biofilm, 37.8% (34) had thin biofilm in anterior and/or posterior teeth, 27.8% (25) had thick biofilm in anterior or posterior teeth and 22.2% (20) had thick biofilm in both anterior and posterior teeth. BF2 revealed a mean value of 21.8% (s.d. 16.5). No statistically significant correlations were found between oral hygiene frequency and the two biofilm indices (p > 0.05), indicating that oral hygiene frequency was not associated to oral hygiene quality in the evaluated sample.
Highlights
Several studies have assessed the prevalence of early childhood caries (ECC) throughout the world
No significant correlations (p > 0.05) could be found between oral hygiene frequency and presence of visible biofilm expressed by both indices (Table 5)
The results of this study showed that the children who had their teeth cleaned twice or more times a day were not necessarily the same that had thin biofilm or no visible biofilm (Table 5)
Summary
Several studies have assessed the prevalence of early childhood caries (ECC) throughout the world. In Brazil, a national survey with 12,117 children aged 18-36 months old demonstrated that 26.9% of them had at least one cavitated caries lesion.[4] Brazilian studies that have registered noncavitated lesions showed prevalence between 35.9 and 55.3%.3,11,20. Surveys including AfroAmerican and Hispanic immigrants in the USA considering noncavitated lesions have found a prevalence of ECC of 20% and 59%, respectively.[15,16]. Studies that evaluated oral health behaviors in infants and preschool children have found that 36 to 92% of them had their teeth cleaned at least once a day.[6,9,12,19,20,25] Provided cleaning is sufficiently thorough and performed daily, toothbrushing is considered to be the most reliable means of controlling biofilm.[10]
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