Large overjet may double the risk of dental trauma.

DATA SOURCES

Medline/PubMed, SCOPUS and Google Scholar.

DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS

Studies were split according to the type of teeth and the overjet threshold used, thus obtaining three subsets; primary teeth - overjet threshold 3-4 mm; permanent teeth - overjet threshold 3-4 mm and permanent teeth - overjet threshold 6 ± 1 mm. Pooled odds ratios for TDI were estimated for each dataset.

RESULTS

Fifty-four studies were included involving patients from five continents. The adjusted pooled odds ratios were 2.31 (95%CI; 1.01-5.27) for primary teeth with 3-4 mm overjet; 2.01 (95%CI; 1.39-2.91) for permanent teeth with 3-4 mm overjet and 2.24 (95%CI; 1.56-3.21) for permanent teeth with 6 ± 1 mm overjet.

CONCLUSIONS

The present meta-analysis of observational studies showed that large overjet may double or even triple the risk for TDI to anterior primary and permanent teeth and that, at global level, large overjet is partly responsible for 100-300 million TDIs.