Prevalence and Treatment Needs for Early Childhood Caries Among 3-5-Year-Old Children From a Rural Community in Uganda

The prevalence of early childhood caries and treatment needs among children attending Anganwadi centers in Goa state: A cross-sectional survey

CONTEXT

The prevalence of early childhood caries (ECC) is widespread, as reported in studies conducted in various states across India. Many children residing in the rural areas attend Anganwadi centers for preprimary education, nourishment, and health care.

AIM

The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of ECC among children attending Anganwadi centers in the state of Goa and their treatment needs.

SETTINGS AND DESIGN

The study was approved by the Institutional Ethical Committee of Goa Dental College and Hospital. The study was carried out in Anganwadi centers spanning the various districts and talukas of Goa state.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The decayed, missing, and filled teeth (dmft) index was recorded in 3-5-year-old children along with treatment needs as per the modified WHO pro forma.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

Statistical software (STATA) for data science by StataCorp LLC (version 17), descriptive statistics, and Chi-square test.

RESULTS

A total of 386 children were examined, out of which 47% had ECC. The prevalence of ECC was highest in Canacona and the least in Tiswadi talukas. The severity and occurrence of ECC were found to the proportional to age. With regard to treatment needs, 8.55% needed restoration of at least one surface, 10.88% needed restoration of 2 or more surfaces, 5.44% required a crown, 11.4% needed pulpal treatment, and 6.74% needed extractions. Within the dmft component, the percentage of decayed teeth was 46.89%, followed by filled (0.52%) and missing (0.52%) teeth.

CONCLUSION

The prevalence and severity of ECC in children attending Anganwadi centers in Goa were found to be large and proportional with increasing age.

Current knowledge about early childhood caries in the gulf cooperation council with worldwide reflection: Scoping review of the scientific literature (2010-2021)

Early childhood caries (ECC) is one of the most prevalent chronic childhood diseases affecting the primary teeth of children younger than 6 years of age. The disease etiology is complex and includes social, biological, and dietary factors. This review aims to explore the knowledge of ECC prevalence globally and locally within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries during the years 2010-2021. Another aim is to explore oral health promotion programs with more focus on the GCC region. A search was conducted in PubMed, Medline, Scopus, the Cochrane Collaboration database, and Google Scholar to identify relevant studies published between 2010 and 2021 using specific keywords. Studies that utilized both the World Health Organization criteria and International Caries Detection and Assessment System for dental caries assessment were included. The included studies indicated considerable variation in the reported prevalence of ECC. While developed countries show low prevalence, countries in the GCC and other Arab countries show a high prevalence of ECC. Many oral health promotion programs were identified globally including oral health education, nutritional programs, the use of fluoride and pit-and-fissure sealants, and inter-professional population-based oral health promotion and prevention programs such as school-based oral health programs, motivational interviewing, and anticipatory guidance. ECC remains a significant problem in many parts of the world including the GCC region. Oral health prevention programs have been established within the GCC region. Nevertheless, the GCC region has some unique characteristics that need to be investigated to contextualize the western model of the dynamics of ECC prevention and promotion programs locally.

Longitudinal study for dental caries calibration of dentists unexperienced in epidemiological surveys

This study aimed to make a longitudinal analysis of interexaminer calibration reproducibility in diagnosing dental caries in posterior teeth, by examiners without previous experience in epidemiological studies. A group of 11 inexperienced examiners underwent theoretical-practical training and calibration assessments, assisted by a standard examiner. An examiner who did not participate directly in the research selected 5-year-old children with and without caries. The D3 diagnostic threshold was used to evaluate dental caries, based on the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria. The initial calibration (baseline) was performed after the theoretical-practical training session, and consisted of examining 20 children; the second calibration occurred three months later, and involved evaluating another 18 children. The interexaminer agreement was obtained by kappa statistics, and by overall percentage agreement. The paired t-test was applied to compare the values for kappa means and overall percentage agreement between the time points studied. At baseline, the values for kappa (> 0.81) and overall percentage agreement (> 95.63%) were considered high. At the 3-month calibration assessment, all the examiners showed some decrease in both kappa (p < 0.0001) and overall percentage agreement (p = 0.0102). The calibration process currently proposed by the WHO is effective. However, reproducibility was not maintained over time for inexperienced examiners evaluating the posterior teeth of 5-year-old children, under epidemiological conditions.

The global prevalence of early childhood caries: A systematic review with meta-analysis using the WHO diagnostic criteria

AIM

To estimate the global prevalence of early childhood caries using the WHO criteria.

DESIGN

Systematic review of studies published from 1960 to 2019.

DATA SOURCES

PubMed, Google Scholar, SciELO, and LILACS. Eligibility criteria were articles using: dmft-WHO diagnostic criteria with calibrated examiners, probability sampling, and sample sizes.

STUDY SELECTION

Two reviewers searched, screened, and extracted information from the selected articles. All pooled analyses were based on random-effects models. The protocol is available on PROSPERO 2014 registration code CRD42014009578.

RESULTS

From 472 reports, 214 used WHO criteria and 125 fit the inclusion criteria. Sixty-four reports of 67 countries (published 1992-2019) had adequate data to be summarised in the meta-analysis. They covered 29 countries/59018 children. Global random-effects pooled prevalence was (percentage[95% CI]) 48[43, 53]. The prevalence by continent was Africa: 30[19, 45]; Americas: 48 [42, 54]; Asia: 52[43, 61]; Europe: 43[24, 66]; and Oceania: 82[73, 89]. Differences across countries explain 21.2% of the observed variance.

CONCLUSIONS

Early childhood caries is a global health problem, affecting almost half of preschool children. Results are reported from 29 of 195 countries. ECC prevalence varied widely, and there was more variance attributable to between-country differences rather than continent or change over time.

Prevalence of early childhood caries, risk factors and nutritional status among 3-5-year-old preschool children in Kisarawe, Tanzania

BACKGROUND

Early childhood dental caries (ECC), a serious public health problem lacks information on the association between ECC, risk factors and nutritional status among children in Tanzania. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of ECC, risk factors and nutritional status among 3-5-year-old preschool children and to assess its correlation with the form, visible plaque scores in upper anterior teeth, total sugar exposure, anthropometric measures, and socio demographic attributes.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 831 children registered in public preschools in Kisarawe District. Assessment of ECC used the WHO (2013) criteria and anthropometric measures used the WHO Child Growth Standards (2006). Structured questionnaires were completed by children's parents through an interview. Collected information on socio-demographic attributes including oral hygiene and sugar exposure to their children was analyzed.

RESULTS

Only 459 children (55.2%) were recognized as caries-free. Dental caries experience in terms of decayed, missing and filled teeth (dmft) index was 2.51. Children with visible plaque were the majority (56.1%). The dmft score index was negatively and significantly associated with weight-for-age z-score [Coefficient: -0.11 (95% CI: -0.76, -0.11)] and positively significantly associated with visible plaque score index [Coefficient: 0.16 (95% CI: 0.18, 0.52)] and total sugar exposure [Coefficient: 0.19 (95% CI: 0.15, 0.38)] in the adjusted model. The prevalence of underweight was 4.2% [95% CI: (3.0-5.8)] and severe underweight was 0.2% [95% CI: (0.1-0.9)] while prevalence of stunting was 1.6% [95% CI: (0.9-2.7)] and severe stunting was 0.4% [95% CI: (0.1-1.1)].

CONCLUSION

This study demonstrated a significant negative relationship between ECC and children's anthropometric measures indicated by weight-for-age, and positive relationship with sugar exposure and poor oral hygiene indicated by visible plaque on upper anterior teeth. Controlling risk factors will reduce the occurrence of ECC thereby catering for a healthy population of well-nourished children.

Dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children's worldwide, 1995 to 2019: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

Early childhood caries (ECC) is a type of dental caries in the teeth of infants and children that is represented as one of the most prevalent dental problems in this period. Various studies have reported different types of prevalence of dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children worldwide. However, there has been no comprehensive study to summarize the results of these studies in general, so this study aimed to determine the prevalence of dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children in different continents of the world during a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Methods

In this review study, articles were extracted by searching in the national and international databases of SID, MagIran, IranMedex, IranDoc, Cochrane, Embase, ScienceDirect, Scopus, PubMed, and Web of Science (ISI) between 1995 and December 2019. Random effects model was used for analysis and heterogeneity of studies was evaluated by using the I² index. Data were analyzed by using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (Version 2) software.

Findings

In this study, a total of 164 articles (81 articles on the prevalence of dental caries in primary teeth and 83 articles on the prevalence of dental caries in permanent teeth) were entered the meta-analysis. The prevalence of dental caries in primary teeth in children in the world with a sample size of 80,405 was 46.2% (95% CI: 41.6–50.8%), and the prevalence of dental caries in permanent teeth in children in the world with a sample size of 1,454,871 was 53.8% (95% CI: 50–57.5%). Regarding the heterogeneity on the basis of meta-regression analysis, there was a significant difference in the prevalence of dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children in different continents of the world. With increasing the sample size and the year of study, dental caries in primary teeth increased and in permanent teeth decreased.

Conclusion

The results of this study showed that the prevalence of primary and permanent dental caries in children in the world was found to be high. Therefore, appropriate strategies should be implemented to improve the aforementioned situation and to troubleshoot and monitor at all levels by providing feedback to hospitals.