Dental Caries and Fluorosis among Children in Lebanon

Purpose: Assess caries and enamel fl uorosis in a sample of 1433 children 6-8, 12 and 15 years of age from 48 schools in six regions of Lebanon, selected by probability proportional to size. Methods: Children were examined according to World Health Organization (WHO) criteria. Results: Results showed a mean of DMFT of 0.6 (dft of 5.15) , 3.42 and 5.44 corresponding respectively to the group 6-8, 12 and 15 years old children. In the same groups a DMFT=0 for the 6-8 years old group was 74%, the 12 years old group 20.9% and for the 15 years old group 9.7%. Ten (2.1%) 12 year-olds had moderate and one (0.2%) severe scores; these children had been born in other countries. Conclusions: Survey results confi rm the need to implement nation-wide dental caries preventions measures. Since water fl uoridation is not feasible, salt fl uoridation would be the alternative choice. Caries Prevalence Percent Caries Severity Mean Relative contribution DMFT components percent DMFT=0 Age Caries history Untreated dft DMFT D M F % 6-8 N=477 88* 86* 5.15 (0.23)** 0.6 (0.05) 94.43 (1.84)** 1.96 (1.13) 3.61 (1.49) 74.0 12 N=479 80* 75 3.42 (0.14) 86.92 (1.38) 3.50 (0.64) 9.57 (1.27) 20.9 15 N=477 90* 81 5.44 (0.17) 77.65 (1.56) 4.52 (0.63) 17.83 (1.51) 9.7 *Primary teeth **SE=standard error Research Article Dental Caries and Fluorosis among Children in Lebanon Mounir Doumit1* and Bassel Doughan2 1Professor in Dental Public Health, former Dean of the Lebanese University School of Dentistry, Expert WHO for Oral Health, Director CE program for the Middle East FDI, Chairman Department of Dental Public Health Lebanese University School of Dentistry, Lebanon 2Professor in Dental Public Health, Director MSc program department of Dental Public Health Lebanese University School of Dentistry, Lebanon *Address for Correspondence: Mounir Doumit DCD DSO HDR, Professor in Dental Public Health, former Dean of the Lebanese University School of Dentistry, Expert WHO for Oral Health, Director CE program for the Middle East FDI, Chairman Department of Dental Public Health Lebanese University School of Dentistry, Lebanon, Email: [email protected] Submitted: 22 December 2016 Approved: 25 January 2017 Published: 26 January 2017 Copyright: 2017 Doumit et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.