No abstract

Oral health plays a major role in an individual's well-being, affecting all aspects of quality of life: esthetics, function, and speech. Abnormalities in oral health may disrupt any or all of these aspects. One of the challenging and most common dental anomalies found in daily practice is congenital missing teeth (CMT). CMT affects more than 20% of the human population and can negatively affect mouth esthetics, dental function, and even a person's speech. CMT essentially result from a defect in tooth development, which is a complex process. Environmental and genetic factors, combined with epigenetics, have been credited with disrupting tooth development, causing CMT. Most cases of CMT are found in a familial pattern, and among all factors, genetics plays a fundamental part; therefore, heredity has a crucial role in determining an individual's phenotype of CMT. There are more than 300 genes that contribute to odontogenesis, and their mutations may be manifest as hypodontia with varying degrees of penetrance and expressivity. A major cause of autosomal dominant non-syndromic hypodontia is mutation in the MSX1 and PAX9 genes in humans. In the present paper, we will discuss in brief the definition, prevalence, etiology, and roles of genetics and epigenetics in CMT, as well as the types of gene mutation, with emphasis on mutation in the MSX1 and PAX9 genes related to CMT.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between gender, teaching experience, and subject taught by the primary school teacher and the attitude as well as knowledge of the teacher about dental trauma in the Indonesian population. Materials and Methods: Ninety teachers from 14 public elementary schools in Central Jakarta were randomly chosen to fill in a questionnaire. The data were analyzed using the Kendall rank correlation. Results: A significant relationship (weak negative linear correlation) between teaching experience and teacher's attitude (p<0.05) was observed. No significant correlation between attitude and knowledge and the other variables were noted. Conclusions: A significant relationship between teaching experience and the teacher's attitude toward dental trauma in children was observed. In general, the attitude toward dental trauma in children was positive whereas, knowledge about dental trauma was insufficient among the teachers.