Prevalence, pattern, and severity of incisal wear in dental students.

This paper describes the prevalence, pattern, and severity of incisal wear of anterior teeth in 64 dental students at an average age of 23 +/- 1.7 years with a high number of permanent teeth present. The index used to assess wear on stone casts (IwI) was shown to have good reproducibility. The results indicated that about 98% of the anterior teeth had been worn to various degrees. In both jaws central incisors were most commonly affected by incisal wear, canines followed next in order, and lateral incisors were least commonly affected. Wear of identical teeth on the right and left side tended to be bilaterally symmetrical in both jaws. The results of these initial observations suggest that data from re-examination of this study group will lend themselves to detecting possible changes of the pattern and severity of incisal wear of permanent anterior teeth.