Comparison of two visual methods for detecting caries among obese and non-obese children

Abstract

Objective: The study aimed to compare two visual methods for detecting caries among obese and non-obese children in Salvador, Brazil.

Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from 2011–2012, which evaluated 180 paediatric patients, 6–14 years old, girls and boys, categorized into two groups: obese and non-obese (healthy weight), according to the body mass index. For the evaluation of dental caries, the decayed, missing or filled teeth index (DMFT/dmft) and International Caries Detection and Assessment System II (ICDAS II) visual criteria were used.

Results: The mean DMFT value was 0.98 in obese children and 0.57 in the non-obese children, without significant differences between groups (p = 0.206). The mean dmft value in the non-obese children (1.66) was higher than in obese children (0.95), with significant differences between groups (p = 0.021). According to ICDAS II criteria, there was a higher prevalence of non-cavitated enamel lesions (D1–3) in obese children (n = 156, 10.5%) compared to the non-obese children (n = 55, 1.9%), with significant differences between the groups (p < 0.001).

Conclusions: The inclusion of non-cavitated lesions during the caries evaluation represents a challenge in diagnosis, which allows for control of this process before the evolution of these lesions to cavitation.

Keywords:

• Body mass index
• child
• dental caries
• obesity

Acknowledgements

We thank the Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) for their assistance in the form of scholarship to the first author. We thank the Pediatric Dentistry and Cariology disciplines (FOUFBA) and Pediatric Gastroenterology and Clinic of Obesity services (CPPHO) for supporting the development of this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.