Elsevier

Dental Abstracts

Volume 61, Issue 5, September–October 2016, Pages 272-273
Dental Abstracts

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Preferential tooth retention in elderly patients

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.denabs.2016.05.041Get rights and content

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Background

Elders’ teeth reflect the accumulation of a lifetime of oral disease and dental care. Some will lose teeth to caries, pulpal disease, and periodontal disease. Some will become too frail to perform sufficient self-care or become unable to access professional dental care services. In addition, their knowledge, attitudes, values, and behaviors and those of their caregivers and health care providers can profoundly affect the amount and type of care they receive. The diagnosis, non-surgical root

Methods

Searches were done of the MEDLINE and Cochrane CENTRAL databases to identify articles for analysis. A total of 32 articles, including 29 prevalence studies that reported on 70 distinct prevalence data sets and 3 studies related to incidence, were selected for study. The data covered a total of 74,000 teeth. Twenty-seven of the studies were performed in countries with very high human development indices and five in countries with high indices.

Results

From 20% to 25% of the teeth in elders had NSRCT and the prevalence increased with increasing age. Between 6% and 8% of elders’ teeth were noted to have PARL, which also increased with increasing age. However, the rate of increase in PARL with age was slower than the rate for NSRCT. The number of teeth with NSRCT was substantially greater than the number with PARL and the discrepancy between the two increased with age.

The prevalence of PARL on teeth with NSRCT was 23% to 32% and decreased with

Discussion

The prevalence of NSRCT in teeth increased with increasing age and at a rate 3.5 times higher than the prevalence of PART. These values are more than twice the prevalence of NSRCT in general adult populations. Thus, although elders may be losing teeth as they age, they are also accumulating NSRCT teeth.

Clinical Significance

Elders retained their teeth preferentially through NSRCT. The prevalence of PARLs was quite high among these elderly persons, but did not increase as rapidly as the growth in

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Hamedy R, Shakiba B, Pak JG, et al: Prevalence of root canal treatment and periapical radiolucency in elders: A systematic review. Gerodontology 33:116-127, 2016

Reprints available from SH White, School of Dentistry, UCLA, CHS 23-010, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1668; fax: +3107944900; e-mail: [email protected]

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