Economic evaluation of fluoride varnish application in preschoolers: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Fluoride varnish (FV) is a convenient way of professionally applying fluoride in preschoolers. However, its modest anticaries effect highlights the need for economic evaluations. AIM: To assess economic evaluations reporting applications of FV to reduce caries incidence in preschoolers. DESIGN: We included full economic evaluations with preschool participants, in which the intervention was FV and the outcome was related to dentin caries. We searched in CENTRAL; MEDLINE via PubMed; WEB OF SCIENCE; EMBASE; SCOPUS; LILACS; BBO; and BVS Economia em saúde, OpenGrey, and EconoLit. Clinical trial registers, thesis and dissertations, and meeting abstracts were hand searched, as well as 11 dental journals. Risk of bias in the included studies was assessed using the Philips' and Drummond's (full and simplified) tools. RESULTS: Titles and abstracts of 2871 articles were evaluated, and 200 were read in full. Eight cost-effectiveness studies were included: five modeling and three within-trial evaluations. None of the studies gave sufficient information to allow a thorough assessment using the bias tools. We did not combine the results of the studies due to the great heterogeneity among them. Four studies reported that FV in preschool children was a cost-effective measure, but in one of these studies, sealants and fluoride toothpaste were more cost-effective measures than the varnish, and three studies used limited data that compromised the generalizability of their results. The other four studies showed a large increase in costs due to the application of varnish and/or low cost-effectiveness. CONCLUSION: We did not find convincing overall evidence that applying FV in preschoolers is an anticaries cost-effective measure. The protocol of this systematic review is available at Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/xw5va/).

Translation and cross-cultural adaptation of an instrument designed for the assessment of quality of life in orthognatic patients.

INTRODUCTION: The Orthognathic Quality of Life Questionnaire (OQLQ) was developed in 2000 and validated in 2002, aiming at assessing the impact and the benefits of orthosurgical treatment on patients' quality of life. OBJECTIVE: Cross-culturally translate into Brazilian Portuguese and back-translate into English a quality of life instrument, assuring maintenance of its properties. METHODS: At first, equivalence of concepts and items was discussed by a group of specialists who scrutinized all questionnaire items. Additionally, four patients in need of orthosurgical treatment were interviewed by means of the focus group methodology. Relevance of the questionnaire items was assured prior to its translation which was carried out by two translators who worked independently. Both translations were tested in 20 patients and then consolidated. The consolidated questionnaire version was back-translated into English by two translators who worked independently, and the consolidated back-translation was assessed by the authors of the original questionnaire as well as by the researchers. RESULTS: The OQLQ was translated into Brazilian Portuguese. This translation was tested in a pilot study comprising 12 patients, aged between 16 and 34 years old. CONCLUSION: The OQLQ Brazilian Portuguese translation proves to be an appropriate instrument to assess the impact of dentofacial deformities on the quality of life of patients in the Brazilian public health system and who are in need of orthosurgical treatment.