Smokeless Tobacco and It’s Association with Tooth Loss

Smokeless tobacco is one of that cause of oral disease and especially in Pakistan and India.1 Objective this study was to determine the prevalence of smokeless tobacco use and the association with tooth loss and oral health in patients coming Dow University of Health Sciences Karachi, Pakistan. 256 patients of age above 18 years were studied in outpatient department of oral diagnosis at Dow University of Health and sciences Karachi. The participants were clinically examined in two different groups according to exposure of smokeless tobacco. The oral health problems found among the participants were gingival recession (72%), tooth loss including tooth wear loss (68%) and missing teeth (60%). However, there were significant association between smokeless tobacco and gingival recession, tooth wear and edentulousness, as a result P-value obtained less than 0.05 on chi-square test. Furthermore odds ratio revealed that people who used smokeless tobacco had 4 times more chances to have tooth loss and 3 times more chances to have gingival recession than those people who don’t use smokeless tobacco. It was concluded that those who chew smokeless tobacco are more likely to have missing teeth, attrition and gingival recession.