Periodontal treatment needs in populations under 20 years of age in Espoo, Finland and Chiangmai, Thailand

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the periodontal treatment needs at under 20 yr of age in the affluent area of Espoo, Finland, offering comprehensive public dental health care, as compared to a less advantaged area in Chiangmai, Thailand. In Espoo, 50 girls and 50 boys were examined in each age group of 7, 12 and 17 yr. In Chiangmai equal numbers of girls and boys were examined to obtain a group of 89 subjects aged 18.5 + 0.6 yr. According to the Community Periodontal Index of Treatment Needs (CPITN) the need of scaling increased in Espoo from 6% of the 7-yr-olds to 39% of the 17-yr-olds. Moderate pocketing (4-5 mm) occurred in one subject at age 12 and in three subjects at age 17. In Chiangmai, deep pockets (6 mm and over) were recorded for 1%, moderate pockets for a total of 44%, and dental calculus as the highest treatment need indicator in the remaining 55%, indicating a need for professional treatment in 100% of the group examined. The mean number of sextants requiring scaling was 0.6 per person at age 17 in Espoo as compared to 4.5 at 18.5 yr of age in Chiangmai. Three or more healthy sextants per subject were recorded for 47% of the 17-yr-olds in Espoo and for only 6% of the 18.5-yr-olds in Chiangmai. It was concluded that already at young age vast differences occur between periodontal treatment needs in industrialized and developing countries.

Assessment of periodontal disease and dental caries in a population survey using the CPITN, GPM/T and DMF/T indices

“…A cross-sectional population survey does not fulfil the requirement of assessing the natural history of the disease but does detect groups with high levels of disease and helps in planning preventive and treatment serviee programs. The CPITN data from this study are in agreement with most other investigations (3,4,16) and confirm otir earlier results (14). It is important to realize tbat in the older groups in the present study with the examination of the 10 index teeth of the CPITN the presence of pathologic 6 mm or deeper pockets in 10-15% of subjects would have remained unidentified (Tables 1 and 5).…”

“…Recently, a number of studies for the assessment of both the prevalence and the treatment needs of periodontal disease in a population have been published (1)(2)(3)(4)(5), There is an increasing adoption of CPITN as a simple index system (6)(7)(8)(9), despite underestimating of pocketing (10) and overestimating of the realistic treatment needs (H).…”

Periodontal treatment need of the 6th‐grade Jordanian pupils

“…The studies, which have employed the WHO CPITN system for examining periodontal health status in 6th‐grade subjects, are presented in Table 1[12–26]. The table sorted the results of the studies according to the country in which they were conducted.…”

“…Nearly 28% and 23% of Jordanian pupils showed healthy periodontium (score 0) and gingival bleeding (score 1), respectively. Comparing these proportions combined (nearly healthy periodontium) for Jordanian pupils with others from other nations, indicates higher proportion of healthy periodontium in more industrialized and developed countries [13,14,16,18,20] compared to those from still developing counties [15,21,22,24,26]. Similarly, the presence of calculus was noticed in about 31% of Jordanian pupils.…”

“…Similarly, the presence of calculus was noticed in about 31% of Jordanian pupils. Jordanian pupils demonstrated higher percentage of calculus than those from more developed countries (Canada, Finland) [13,18] and lower calculus rate than those from some African nations [19,22] and those of less growth (Yemen) [24]. The difference in periodontal conditions could be explained by differences in diet, oral hygiene practices, and differences in the access to health care among people from developing and developed countries.…”