We in South Africa are fortunate that, over the past 70 years, several pioneers of the dental profession have re­ corded their observations on the dental health of var­ ious groups. Friel (1910) appears to be the first to have published such a record. Writing in the British Dental Journal he described his findings on the “Teeth of Afri­ can Natives in Johannesburg” . Friel took advantage, as he...

Determining the prevalence of dental caries is a necessary step for health care planners to identify resources needed for dental services in the community and to provide preventive and curative services to combat dental health problems. Field surveys of cross-sectional design are important tools to describe the status of dental problems in the community.1-3 The visuotactile method has been wide...

Background Decayed, Missing, and Filled Teeth (DMFT) indicator is one of the most epidemiologic indexes in dentistry indicating the situation of oral and dental health among people of a society. The present study has been conducted with the aim of determining the dmft index among Iranian first-grade elementary students. Materials and Methods This study was conducted on 3,000 (1,500 girls and 1,...

Introduction: Medical staffs are important and accessible source for gathering health information such as oral health. As a result, their increased Knowledge can lead to improvement of their own and their patients' health habits. The purpose of this study was to evaluate Oral Hygiene Index simplified (OHI-S) and its relationship with attitudes toward oral health behaviors of medical science stu...

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Dental caries is a chronic disease with a high prevalence despite its preventability. Untreated dental caries can cause substantial pain and suffering, and imposes a significant public health and economic burden. Our aim was to determine how prevalent and sever dental caries are among school children between 6 to 12 years of age from a mixed population (Jordanians and Syrian...

BACKGROUND Mesiodens is the most common type of supernumerary tooth found in the premaxilla. It might be discovered by the clinical examination by chance on a radiograph or as the cause of an unerupted maxillary central incisor. The genetic transmission of supernumerary and impacted teeth is poorly understood. Mirror imaging in twins has been reported frequently in relation to several unilatera...

BACKGROUND Dental benefit plans have grown since they were introduced in the 1960s. More than one-half of the American population is covered by a private dental benefit plan today. In general, these plans have been designed to mirror medical insurance plans, despite the fact that dental care is significantly different from medical care. The author discusses the differences and how they should i...