Prevalence, intensity, and efficacy of dental caries treatment in pre-school children living in the town of Khimki

Abstract

Was to assess the prevalence, intensity, and treatment efficacy of dental caries in children aged 3 to 6 years residents of the town of Khimki, Moscow region. The number of decayed, filled, and missed due to caries teeth was registered. The parents were interviewed in order to reveal dental caries treatment experience as well as reasons for negative experience, age of the first dental office visit and the reasons for it. The incidence of dental caries in 3-6 years old living in Khimki is 52%. The prevalence and incidence unsurprisingly grow with age as well as the number of children having the experience of toothache and early extractions. The vast majority of children including these with positive dental treatment experience have untreated carious lesions. The difference of decayed teeth between children having negative and positive treatment experience in statistically insignificant (p=0.57), and the number of filling is equally small in both subgroups (p=0.99). This means even cooperative children who underwent dental treatment have untreated (or previously treated but having no fillings - in 22.6% of treatment cases) cavities. The dental caries intensity growth outpaces the possibilities of the Khimky dental service resulting in the low number of caries-free previously treated children (17.9% of all treated). All this dictates the necessity for dental caries prevention programs and implementation of new models for dental care organization in preschool children.