Hypodontia and Associated Dental Anomalies - Assignment Example

Hypodontia could be associated with other congenital conditions, e.g. with ectodermal dysplasias, Down syndrome, Rieger syndrome, etc. Thus Rieger syndrome is characterized by a combination of hypodontia, craniofacial malformations, and eye abnormalities. This circumstance allows using the presence of hypodontia as the indirect indicator of genetic disorders.
The diagnostics of hypodontia are quite simple; nevertheless, this condition is often neglected by the patient’s parents. There is evidence that defects in teeth development and their absence could influence 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 a mini-poster.

The article published in 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 an even higher prevalence in the patients with ectodermal dysplasias, Down syndrome and palate or lip clefts.

The article selected for the mini-poster presentation was prepared by the group of Turkish authors (Kırzıog˘lu et al.) who conducted the retrospective study on the prevalence of this pathologic state amongst the population of their country. They designed their research as a retrospective cohort study where the 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] pediatric 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 loss 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 localization of the 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 hypodontia 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 hypodontia patients and their parents about missed teeth and their poor motivation to treat this condition. We can see from the data represented in the article that 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.

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