Dental problems in a patient with the classic type of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome--a case report.

ABSTRACT

The huge progress in diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in developmental medicine allowed not only to save lives of many children and adolescents, but also enforced the necessity of close cooperation between many specialists. Unfortunately dental treatment is still not an integral part of taking care of disabled children and youth with chronic diseases. The situation worsens, when we come across the so-called rare diseases. Lack of access to dental services, when it comes to disabled patients, results from financial situation, healthcare system, as well as parents' ignorance of necessity of more frequent prophylactic and treatment visits. Whereas the reluctance of dentists towards the care of disabled patients is caused by difficulties with enforcing the recommendations and lack of procedures for taking care of patients with rare diseases, which was repeatedly signalled by us. Such situation is ideally pictured by yet another described case of the 17 year old patient with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Despite many dental visits, no vital treatment decisions have been made. In our Department, in the procedures of 1-day surgery, tooth 48, being the cause of pain, has been extracted. Basing on all of the above, it can be deduced that preserving the continuation and consequence in spreading the knowledge of rare diseases among patients, as well as physicians and dentists, is a responsibility of everyone who even once came across this problem.