Value of ICDAS index in a preschool community from Iasi.

ABSTRACT

UNLABELLED The International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS) is a clinical scoring system for use in dental education, clinical practice, research, and epidemiology. The ICDAS is designed to lead to better quality information to inform decisions about appropriate diagnosis, prognosis, and clinical management at both the individual and public health levels. It provides a framework to support and facilitate personalized management of the caries process and dental decay for improved long-term health outcomes. AIM: This baseline study aims to find out the distribution of the caries lesions in primary teeth and their associations between the socio-economic statuses of families, in an lasi town preschool community (Romania). MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study series included 500 children (276 girls, 224 boys), aged 3-7 years old ( 43 subjects aged 3-3, 9 years, 126 subjects aged 4-4, 9 years, 186 subjects aged 5-5, 9 years, 136 subjects aged 6-6, 9 years and 9 subjects aged 7 years), attending a Iasi town kindergarten, in which the ICDAS index, was applied. RESULTS: The visits to the dentist are statistically correlated only with the average number of healthy teeth from the frontal and the lateral area. In other areas of the dental arch, there is no statistically significant data, but in the frontal area, the children that had visited the dentist present an average number of 3.5 healthy teeth, and the children that had not been to the dentist present an average number of 3.717 healthy teeth. The number of teeth with enamel destruction without dentin visibility is much reduced in children also, statistically significances being present only in lateral mandibular and maxillary areas. Though in lateral mandible area, this value varies from 0 (for children between 6-7 years old), to 0.1176 (for children between 5-6 years old). The frequency of tooth brushing, has a significant influence on the (ICDAS = 4) value in lateral mandibular and maxillary areas, where these values decrease, as the tooth brushing is more often. Though in lateral maxillary area, the value is 0.066 for the children that brush their teeth twice a day, for the children that brush their teeth once a day, the value is 0.0353 and for the children that brush their teeth occasionally the value is 0.018. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirmed the high caries level in this region. The total caries experience indicators are normally higher, in the mixed dentition because the primary teeth have been exposed longer for the risk factors of dental caries for example frequent sugar snacks and drinks. It can be concluded that ICDAS method, gives much more relevant information about caries process than other methods. The distributions of the ICDAS codes are correlated between the primary and the permanent molars of the mixed dentition.