Revista de higiene y salud bucal

Abstracto

Fluoride in dental caries management (Risk & Benefit)

Azhar Naseeb

Oral and dental health is one of the most important factors that affect the quality of life of preschool children. Several epidemiological studies have been done in Gulf Council Country (GCC) proved that dental caries prevalence among children ranged between 80-90% as this becoming a priority for the GCC Ministries of Health. And because dental caries is both a common disease and is largely preventable disease, Kingdom of Bahrain –Ministry of Health & other GCC countries. Thus, it is an important to monitor prevalence, trends of oral and dental diseases and their severity among school children aged 6, 12 and 15 year old in order to offer the necessary data for strengthening dental public health programs in Kingdom of Bahrain & GCC. In conclusion from above several surveys done in Kingdom of Bahrain there is an overall minute improvement in oral health status of Bahraini 6, 12 and 15year old children and mean of national DMFT=2.26 for 12 years-old is lower than the global DMFT mean=2.6 but still there is a dental caries incidence among all age groups. Therefore, it can be understand that childhood dental caries is a serious dental public health problem among children, particularly the very young children. Prevalence of dental caries and periodontal disease are high across Kingdom of Bahrain. Therefore, a serious actions by all dental health services authorities to prevent dental caries such school oral health brushing technique by using fluoridated tooth paste, water fluoridation but that has been stooped adding fluoride to the natural water in year 1988 due to high percentage of fluorosis documented in children aged 12 years old. Recent study done in Kingdom of Bahrain in early 2019 showed an evidence of the different available resources contained fluoride that will be presented.