Risk factors associated to the caries lesions progression in primary teeth and to caries incidence in permanent teeth in the childhood to adolescence transition: a 10-year cohort study

• Grant number: 19/27593-8
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): July 01, 2020
• Effective date (End): October 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Dentistry - Pediatric Dentistry
• Principal Investigator: Fausto Medeiros Mendes
• Grantee: Bruna Brondani
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Odontologia (FO). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Dental caries is considered the oral health disease that provokes the greatest burden to the human population in the world, with alarming prevalence figures in all age ranges. When the disease is non treated, it leads to consequences in both dentitions, such as negative impact on Oral Health-Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL). The evaluation of risk factors, as to predict the occurrence of new caries lesions, as to prognoses the progression of lesions already present, is important to direct an individual approach in order to prevent major problems related to dental caries. Nevertheless, few studies followed-up the persons from the childhood to the adolescence, limiting the comprehension of the disease in this transition period. Thus, the aim of this study consists in evaluating the progression of carious lesions in primary teeth and the caries incidence in permanent teeth, assessing the risk factors for these two outcomes in a cohort study with 10 years of follow-up, focusing the childhood to adolescence transition. This investigation will be carried out in Santa Maria (RS), using a sample of a cohort that started in 2010. In this year, 639 children from 1 to 5 years old were examined in relation to the presence of dental caries, considering different stages of severity and activity of the caries lesions. These children were reexamined after 2 years and 7 years. Now, children from this cohort will be contacted, and the children who were found and that the parents agreed with the participation in this phase of the study, will be reevaluated regarding the dental caries. Demographic, socioeconomic and behavioral factors will be collected again through a structured questionnaire applied to the parents and/or legal guardians. OHRQoL will be evaluated with the instrument Child Perceptions Questionnaire 11-14 (CPQ11-14). The outcome variables will be the caries lesions progression in the primary teeth, evaluated after 7 years and eventually, after 10 years, and the caries incidence on permanent teeth, evaluated after 7 and 10 years of follow-up. The negative impact on the OHRQoL will be other outcome. Multilevel Poisson regression models will be derived to evaluate the association of explanatory variables and progression of caries lesions in primary teeth, as well as other variables evaluated in the earlier waves of the study and outcomes related to caries incidence and OHRQoL, estimating relative risk values and 95% confidence intervals. (AU)