Prevalence of dental caries in children with chronic heart disease

Abstract

Introduction: Chronic heart disease in children imposes a great burden in most developing countries, especially among those with congenital heart disease where early surgical intervention is difficult because of limited medical facilities. Most of our patients survive on long-time oral medications, some of which are sweetened. Therefore, there is a heightened risk of dental caries. This study sought to determine if there were more caries in children with chronic heart disease than those without heart disease.Materials and Methods: This study was cross-sectional, and oral examinations were done using mouth mirror. A convenient sampling method was adopted. Children were recruited over an 8-month period (May–December 2017). Results: This study compared 130 children with varied forms of cardiac defect with 130 children who had no chronic morbidity or any cardiac lesion. Their ages ranged from 1 to 14 years, with a mean of 5.85 +/- 3.30. The prevalence of dental caries was generally low in this report; dental caries was identified in 20.8% of all the children. Among those with cardiac defect, 30 (25.2%) had dental caries. Furthermore, caries was observed more frequently among cardiac patients on chronic medication when compared with the control, and this observation was statistically significant (X2 = 18.846, df = 1,P= 0.00). The mean decayed, missing, and filled teeth (dmft, 2.03 +/- 0.85) and (DMFT, 1.22 +/- 0.44) for primary and permanent dentition were higher among those with cardiac defect; those without cardiac lesion had a mean dmft of 1.31 +/- 0.48 and DMFT of 1.00 +/- 0.00. Conclusion: Dental caries was low in this study though most cases were reported among patients with cardiac disease.

Keywords

• cardiac disease
• dental caries
• mean decayed
• missing
• and filled teeth
• mean decayed
• missing
• and filled teeth
• permanent dentition
• primary dentition