Anderson Max
Washington Dental Service, Seattle, USA.
Pediatr Dent. 2002 Sep-Oct;24(5):377-85.
The epidemiology of dental caries in the pediatric population demonstrates that caries is no longer pandemic in the US population. The incidence is confined to a subset of the total population of our children. The disease is also increasingly isolated to specific teeth and tooth morphology types in both the pediatric and the mixed dentitions, with pits and fissures being the predominate diseased sites. This sequestration of the disease into specific populations, individuals and tooth sites mandates a risk assessment strategy. In the past, universal preventive strategies were appropriate because of the extensive penetration of caries in the population. Our health care system does not have adequate resources to treat the entire population when a substantial portion of the population is not at risk for this disease process. Validated risk assessment strategies may prove adjunctive for the practicing dentist. Certainly knowledge of the known risk factors will assist the practitioner in performing risk assessment within their patient populations. This paper presents a review of the known risk factors for dental caries in child and adolescent populations.
儿童龋齿的流行病学表明，龋齿在美国人群中已不再是一种广泛流行的疾病。其发病率仅限于我们儿童总人口中的一部分。在儿童和混合牙列中，这种疾病也越来越多地局限于特定的牙齿和牙齿形态类型，窝沟是主要的患病部位。这种疾病在特定人群、个体和牙齿部位的集中出现，要求采取风险评估策略。过去，由于龋齿在人群中的广泛传播，普遍的预防策略是合适的。当相当一部分人群没有患这种疾病的风险时，我们的医疗保健系统没有足够的资源来治疗全体人群。经过验证的风险评估策略可能对执业牙医有所帮助。当然，了解已知的风险因素将有助于从业者在其患者群体中进行风险评估。本文对儿童和青少年人群中已知的龋齿风险因素进行了综述。
