A New Index of Tooth Wear

Vol. 43, No. 2, 2009

Article (References) Article (PDF 171 KB)

Original Paper

A New Index of Tooth Wear
Reproducibility and Application to a Sample of 18- to 30-Year-Old University Students
J. Fares^a, S. Shirodaria^b, K. Chiu^a, N. Ahmad^a, M. Sherriff^a, D. Bartlett^a

^aDepartment of Restorative Dentistry, King’s College London Dental Institute at Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ Dental Hospitals, London, and
^bSensodyne, GSK Consumer Health Care, Weybridge, Surrey, UK

Address of Corresponding Author

Caries Res 2009;43:119-125 (DOI: 10.1159/000209344)

Key Words

Dentine
Enamel
Tooth wear index
Tooth wear, prevalence

Abstract

A modified wear index, in which the wear of enamel and dentine are recorded separately, is described. The index was applied to estimating the prevalence and extent of tooth wear in a single convenience sample of 18- to 30-year-old students attending a university in London. The subjects were examined under good lighting in a dental chair away from a dental school. A total of 707 females and 303 males were recruited with a mean age of 21.9 years (standard deviation = 0.1, range = 18–30) and examined by 3 trained and calibrated examiners. Intra-examiner intra-class correlation coefficients showed a range of 0.44–0.88. The unweighted κ scores were above 0.88 for enamel and dentine. The presence of enamel wear was common to all subjects, but 6.1% of the participants had more than one third of the tooth surface affected. Dentine was exposed on 5.3% of all surfaces, with the largest proportion accounting for less than 10% of the tooth surface (grade 1). The proportion of subjects with at least 1 surface with dentine exposed was 76.9% of the total population. The males had significantly more wear in dentine than the females (p = 0.001). The inter-examiner intra-class correlation coefficients for enamel and dentine were 0.87 and 0.92, respectively. The reproducibility of the index was comparable to other analyses and provides an opportunity to assess the prevalence of enamel wear in large population-based studies.

Author Contacts

Prof. D. Bartlett
King’s College London Dental Institute, Floor 25, Guy’s Tower
London Bridge
London SE1 9RT (UK)
Tel. +44 207 188 5390, Fax +44 207 188 1583, E-Mail david.bartlett@kcl.ac.uk

Article Information

Received: May 8, 2008
Accepted after revision: January 27, 2009
Published online: March 24, 2009
Number of Print Pages : 7
Number of Figures : 2, Number of Tables : 5, Number of References : 16

Cited in Web of Science®

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