Lack of stability in enamel defects in primary teeth of children with cerebral palsy or mental retardation.

The Developmental Defects of Enamel (DDE) index was used to study the reliability across time of assessment of enamel defects in primary teeth in neurologically handicapped children. Fourteen of the 48 children originally examined were available for re-examination 6 months later. The original findings were confirmed in only 6 of these children (5 with no enamel defects and 1 with an enamel defect). Discrepancies noticed between the 2 examinations in the other 8 children could be explained on the basis of biological processes that occurred during the 6-month interim, namely, attrition, abrasion, crown fracture, caries, and possibly remineralization of a hypomineralized defect. These findings suggest that the optimum time for studying such defects is as soon as possible after the teeth erupt.