[Quality of life associated with tooth loss and tooth replacement]. / Levenskwaliteit bij verlies en vervanging van gebitselementen.

Tooth loss leads, depending on the number and location of missing teeth, to a certain degree of loss of function. This loss of function might lead to an impairment of oral health-related quality of life. The literature provides fairly strong evidence that tooth loss is associated with impaired oral health-related quality of life. The locations where teeth are missing and the distribution in the tooth arch of the teeth that still remain have an effect on the degree to which oral health-related quality of life is impaired. These findings are independent of the context and the measurement instrument used. With respect to tooth replacement no direct evidence exists concerning which type of replacement for which cases of tooth reduction have the largest positive effect. Research in this area is still in its infancy.

Patient evaluation of treatment success as related to denture tooth type.

PURPOSE: Tooth selection is considered an important factor in the construction of complete dentures that function harmoniously and comfortably and preserve the denture-supporting tissues. To bring a scientific background to clinical impressions, the hypothesis that different cusp angles bring different levels of patient satisfaction was tested. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Four different occlusal schemes were compared. The dependent variables (3 groups of visual analogue scores of patient satisfaction) were analyzed by means of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) for repeated measures. RESULTS: All MANOVAs showed nonsignificant results for the effect of tooth type on the 3 groups of variables (P values between 0.1 and 0.8). CONCLUSION: The results did not show statistically significant differences in patient satisfaction among the different occlusal schemes. It is recommended that future research use more sensitive instruments to evaluate this specific aspect of treatment success.