Systematic review suggests a relationship between moderate to late preterm birth and early childhood caries.

Abstract

The aim was to examine the association between moderate to late preterm birth and the prevalence of early childhood caries. We searched the PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Trials Register databases up to February 28, 2020. Two independent reviewers screened the papers for relevance, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias. A random-effects meta-analysis was performed to pool the prevalence of early childhood caries by gestational age. The authors identified 14 studies covering 210,691 children. They were published from 2007-2020 and included birth cohorts, cross-sectional, register-based and case-control studies. We assessed eight of them as having low or moderate risk of bias. The median caries prevalence was 48.8% among children born moderate to late preterm compared to 20.5% for those born full term. The pooled overall odds ratio was 1.48 (95% confidence interval 1.16-1.89; P<.001). The certainty of this finding was low due to heterogeneity and inconsistencies across the studies. This systematic review and meta-analysis displayed a significantly higher prevalence of early childhood caries in children born moderate to late preterm compared to full term children. The finding suggests that the gestational age should be collected as a risk factor in the paediatric dental records.