Caries experience in a child population in a deprived area of Brazil, using ICDAS II

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to assess the caries experience of children aged 6 to 7 years old in a socially deprived suburban area of Brazil’s Federal District, using the ICDAS II system and to investigate determinants of dental caries. The survey was carried out in six public schools by three calibrated examiners, on a sample of 835 children. ICDAS II codes had to be converted into dmf/DMF components at surface and tooth levels, resulting in unfamiliar caries variables, to enable some meaningful reporting of the findings. The prevalence of dental caries, including enamel and dentinal carious lesions, in primary teeth was 95.6% and in permanent teeth it was 63.7%. Mean values of d2mf2-t (enamel and dentinal lesions), d3mf3-t (dentine lesions), D2MF2-T and D3MF3-T indices were 6.9 ± 3.8, 3.2 ± 3.4, 1.7 ± 1.6 and 0.2 ± 0.5, respectively. Enamel carious lesions predominated in the dmf-t/s and DMF-T/S indices. Seven-year-old children had statistically significantly more enamel and dentine carious lesions in permanent teeth than 6-year-old children had. Using ICDAS II, the prevalence of dental caries in both dentitions was very high. In both dentitions, the decay component predominated, with hardly any restorations or extractions observed. The new ICDAS II system leads to overvaluation of the seriousness of dental caries experience and made reporting of outcomes cumbersome. Guidelines on analysing data and reporting results should be agreed upon before this system can be used in epidemiological surveys globally.

Caries Diagnosis in the Mixed Dentition Using ICDAS II

“…The prevalence of caries found in this study is high, as all examined children presented one of more tooth surfaces with enamel caries lesion, findings that are similar to other studies that also used the same index [10,11,13].…”

“…The Kappa index obtained in this study was very good, indicating high level of intraexaminer agreement (0.83), similar to other studies [10,11,15]. That confirms the statement that says ICDAS has good-to-excellent reproducibility, even for raters without experience in epidemiological studies and even after a short training time [7].…”

“…A tendency has been observed in global epidemiological studies [10][11][12][13] that use the ICDAS II assessment criteria aiming to compare data from different countries. Yet, few studies have been conducted presenting epidemiological data about non-cavitated caries lesion.…”

“…In Brazil, some studies have used ICDAS II as a tool to detect caries lesion and activity [10,[15][16][17]. Other studies have used this system to compare caries diagnosis methods in deciduous teeth [18][19][20][21][22] and permanent teeth [23], and some of these are validated methods [24,25].…”

Differential Impacts of Caries Classification in Children and Adults: A Comparison of ICDAS and DMF-T

“…Several epidemiological population-based studies have demonstrated a significant decrease in caries worldwide, a fact that is not demonstrated when the object of the study are preschool children (3). Well-designed epidemiological studies provide a picture of the population and are important tools in defining the distribution of funds for oral health programs and the implementation of preventive policies by stakeholders (4).…”