Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #119739

Amid Ismail, School of Dentistry, University of Michigan, 1011 N. University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1078, 734-647-9190, ismailai@umich.edu

This paper responds to the position proposed by researchers from UK in which they implied that restorative treatment of carious primary teeth does not improve benefit children. The researchers did not document the reasons for the restorative decisions. Size and extent of the carious cavitations were not recorded; and hence, decayed teeth that were never restored may have been at an early stage of the caries process. On the other hand, carious teeth that were restored may have been deep and consequently, failure was a more likely outcome. Toothache and infection in children are serious health risks. The authors did not consider quality of life of children. In another article on anxiety and treatment preferences of parents, the authors failed to present parents with levels of uncertainty of pain occurrence with either restorative or no restorative care provided for a decayed tooth; hence, the parents' preferences were biased by prior experiences and, consequently, parents of children with previous pain episodes tended to choose treatment over a no-treatment option. These examples point to the difficulty of reaching conclusions using data from retrospective studies or studies that were not well designed to answer the research question. For restorative care, the basic questions are when to intervene to restore a carious tooth, what approaches should be used, and why. Today, carious lesions can be treated “non-traumatically” and we have moved away from the concept that dental care should only be provided when there is pain.

Learning Objectives:

• Analyze the outcomes used to determine whether dental caries in primary teeth should be restored?
• Discuss the array of potential outcomes that were not considered by the proponets of "no treatment".

Keywords: Oral Health, Oral Health Outcomes

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation