Following a paper published in the British Dental Journal in 2008 we decided to look at the decay experience of a cohort of children who first registered with the practice in 2005 and see how the decay experience compared with the published study.
We have looked at a similar age group and used the same criteria but this is not a like for like study and is only intended to give an idea of the trend.
The published study was undertaken in the North West of England and involved 739 patients aged between 3 and 6 years of age over a two year period. We have looked at 63 patients aged between 2 and 6 years of age over a five year period.
The published survey looked at levels of repeat decay and at levels of new decay on children who previously
had no decay. We felt this would be an interesting area to look at in giving an indication of the effectiveness
of our preventative approach.
Results
In the North West survey, 80 children out of 739 (11%) had decay at the beginning of the survey compared with 2 children
out of 25 (8%) in the Golding House survey. After 2 years, 72% of the children who presented with decay in the North West
survey had new decay detected, compared with 0% in the Golding House survey.
Of the children who presented with no decay in the North West survey, 27% developed decay in the following two years,
compared with 0% children in the Golding House survey.
In the Golding house survey after 5 years, 4 children (17%) deveolped decay out of the original 23 who presented with no
decay. Of the two children presenting with decay, no further decay was detected in the following 5 years.
Conclusions
Although this is not a scientific study and a small sample, it does seem to indicate a reduction in decay for children
attending Golding House dental practice compared with other studies of a similar nature.
Please contact us if you require further information and full results of this survey.