International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry

AIM: Dental fear affects children's oral health; however, there is no evidence regarding the pathways linking possible predictors for its occurrence. Thus, this study aimed to explore the direct and indirect effects of sociodemographic, clinical, behavioural and psychosocial factors on the development of dental fear in schoolchildren over time. DESIGN: This is a prospective cohort study, with 10 years of follow-up. The first assessment started in 2010 (T1) with a sample of 639 children aged 1 to 5 years from Southern Brazil...

BACKGROUND: Children's pain in dentistry has undesirable short- and long-term consequences; therefore, less invasive treatments merit consideration. AIM: To investigate procedural pain scores for two treatments for carious primary molars in New Zealand primary care. DESIGN: Split-mouth randomised control trial, secondary outcome analysis. Children (4-8-years) with proximal carious lesions on matched primary molars had one tooth treated with the Hall technique (HT), and one treated with a conventional stainless-steel crown (CT); treatment type and order of treatment were randomly allocated (allocation concealment)...

BACKGROUND: Dental anxiety is a common issue among adolescents. Despite the use of smartphones being an important part of their daily lives, only a few digital-based interventions for dental anxiety have been tested in randomized controlled trials (RCT). AIM: To evaluate a new smartphone application (App) named FALE, which was designed to demonstrate interest from the dentist to adolescent and to reduce dental anxiety. DESIGN: This is a RCT in which 184 adolescents aged 10 to 19 years were randomly allocated into the intervention (IG) or control (CG) groups...

BACKGROUND: Infant oral mutilation (IOM), widely practiced in East Africa, involves gouging of unerupted teeth to allegedly cure childhood diseases. Non-sterile instruments are often used during IOM, causing immediate and long-term complications, including dental defects, infection, and death. CASE REPORT: This is a case report describing how IOM affected tooth development and oral health in a four-year-old Somali girl who, three years prior, underwent IOM of her primary mandibular canines...

BACKGROUND: Good oral health in children with congenital heart defect (CHD) is important. AIM: To assess oral health behavior during early childhood in children with CHD in comparison with children with no known systemic conditions and explore parental oral health behavior´s association with children's behavior. DESIGN: 70 out of all 89 children born in Finland between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2020 with a) major CHD potentially included in the criteria of endocarditis prophylaxis or b) any CHD with surgical repair combined with a chromosomal syndrome, and a comparison group of 87 children with no known systemic conditions were recruited...

BACKGROUND: Molar-root incisor malformation (MRIM) is a rare dental anomaly featuring constricted cervical margins and tapered, narrow root and pulp morphology, often associated with severe toothache and infection. AIM: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of MRIM in children seen in a specialist pediatric dental unit of a tertiary referral hospital and to describe the characteristics of affected individuals. DESIGN: An audit of children attending from November 2020 to November 2021...

BACKGROUND: The evidence for the influence of oral health on academic performance is still unclear. AIM: To assess the influence of oral health conditions on poor academic performance in school children by including a range of clinical and self-reported OH measures in a modified cross-sectional study. DESIGN: This study was carried out on schoolchildren aged 12 to 14 years in Jazan, Saudi Arabia using a stratified and randomized cluster sampling method...

BACKGROUND: Dental anxiety is associated with untreated dental caries. Understanding which childhood behaviours or experiences have the strongest association with later dental anxiety may help focus preventative strategies, subsequently limiting the burden of dental caries and anxiety. DESIGN: Data was obtained from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Multivariable logistic regression was used to explore associations between adolescent dental anxiety and childhood behaviours and experiences...

Mucocele is a lesion frequently found in the oral cavity, occurring particularly on the lower lip, then followed by the floor of the mouth, ventral portion of the tongue, buccal mucosa, and, rarely, on the dorsum of the tongue. This report presents an unusual case of mucocele on the dorsum of the tongue of a 7-year-old child. The lesion was nodular, asymptomatic, self-limited, and naturally slow growing. Due to these characteristics, only benign lesions were considered in the differential. The lesion was surgically excised without any local or general complications...

AIM: To compare the effectiveness of the LSTR technique (lesion sterilization and tissue repair) with CTZ paste (chloramphenicol, tetracycline, zinc oxide and eugenol) and pulpectomy with ZOE paste (zinc oxide and eugenol) in the treatment of primary molars with pulp necrosis. DESIGN: Eighty-eight primary molars with pulp necrosis from 70 children between the ages of three and eight years were included. The teeth were randomized to the LSTR with CTZ paste group or pulpectomy with ZOE paste group...

OBJECTIVE: To summarize and rank the effectiveness of clinical interventions using different agents for primary prevention of early childhood caries (ECC). METHOD: Two reviewers independently searched PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with at least 12-month follow-up. The network meta-analysis (NMA) on the different agents was based on a random-effects model and frequentist approach. Standardized mean differences (SMD) with 95% confidence interval (CI) of the caries increment, either in term of dmft or dmfs, were calculated and used in the NMA...

BACKGROUND: Tele-dentistry can be useful to facilitate screening of children, especially those living in rural and remote communities, and during the COVID-19 pandemic. AIM: This study evaluated the feasibility of tele-dental screening for the identification of early childhood caries (ECC) in preschoolers using an app operated by their parents with remote review by oral-health therapists. DESIGN: This cross-sectional study was a sub-project nested in ORIGINS Project, a longitudinal birth cohort study in Western Australia...

AIM: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate whether family income modifies associations between dental caries and sex, age, mother's education, type of preschool, sugar intake, and toothbrushing. BACKGROUND: Dental caries is a multifactorial dyanamic disease primarily mediated by biofilm and sugar. DESIGN: A randomly selected sample of 308 Brazilian preschool children aged 1-3 years underwent a clinical oral examination for the assessment of moderate/extensive dental caries using codes 3-6 of the International Caries Detection and Assessment System...

BACKGROUND: Primary lower incisors can also suffer traumatic dental injury (TDI), which may lead to consequences for both primary and permanent dentitions. AIM: To evaluate the prevalence of traumatic dental injuries (TDI) in the primary lower incisors and the factors associated with their occurrence and with the incidence of sequelae in the successor permanent teeth. DESIGN: 2926 dental files from patients who attended a reference center for dental trauma in the primary teeth, from 1998 to 2020, were screened...

OBJECTIVES: This systematic review aimed to assess economic evaluations reporting applications of fluoride varnish to reduce caries incidence in preschoolers. METHODS: We included full economic evaluations with preschool participants, in which the intervention was fluoride varnish and the outcome was related to dentin caries. We searched in CENTRAL, MEDLINE via PubMed; WEB OF SCIENCE; EMBASE; SCOPUS; LILACS; BBO; BVS Economia em saúde, OpenGrey, and EconoLit...

BACKGROUND: Parents are frequently used to recall events of exposure and disease as a proxy for their children in observational health research. AIM: To assess the validity of parental recall of children's utilisation of dental services. DESIGN: Parents in the Longitudinal Stud of Australian Children (LSAC) were asked to recall their child's overall dental service use in the previous year and if the study child had received fillings or extractions due to decay in the previous two years...

BACKGROUND: Oral mucositis (OM) is one of the most debilitating side effects of chemotherapy. Among the current methods used in OM management there is high power laser therapy (HPLT), the efficacy of which has been recently tested. AIM: This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of HPLT applied to the treatment of OM in paediatric patients. DESIGN: Fourteen onco-hematological paediatric patients treated with chemotherapy and/or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and affected by OM at different grades were enrolled in this study...

BACKGROUND: Limited evidence regarding the post-COVID dental status of paediatric patients is available, with most studies assessing only children's oral health habits. AIM: To evaluate the effect of COVID-19 lockdown on the oral health of paediatric dental patients in Greece. DESIGN: This was a retrospective cohort study that included a questionnaire reporting on children's oral health behavior and a clinical examination assessing dental caries and dental treatment needs using the ICDAS criteria, dmft/DMFT, and Treatment Need Index...

BACKGROUND: Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is widely used in pediatric dentistry. Appropriate use of CBCT is important because children are more vulnerable to ionising radiation than adults. AIM: To investigate the use of CBCT in children by describing reasons for the request and its distribution according to age, oral region, and department. DESIGN: CBCT scans of patients (age <19 years) who presented to our dental clinic were investigated retrospectively according to sex, age (6-12 [group 1] and 13-18 [group 2] years based on dentition), referring department, imaging area (anterior/posterior, mandible/maxilla), and indication...

PURPOSE: To determine if safety protocols utilized in the administration of the 2021 ABPD Oral Clinical Examination (OCE) were reassuring to candidates and examiners, and effective at addressing prevention of COVID-19 infection. METHODS: An electronic survey was emailed to candidates and examiners following completion of the board examination process. The candidate survey had 784 and the examiner survey had 108 eligible participants. Eight questions overlapped between the two surveys...