Prevalence of Clinically Missing Permanent Teeth Due to Agenesis and Secondary Factors among Patients between 8-17 Age Group Visiting a Private Dental Hospital - an Institutional Study

Introduction: Congenitally missing teeth or hypodontia is a condition where some of the adult teeth fail to develop. There have been theories involving genetic and environmental factors which lead to prevalence of permanent missing teeth. Missing teeth can affect the patients and cause many other problems such as malocclusion, periodontal damage, delay in bone growth, reduced mastication and unfavourable skeletal appearance. Thus having awareness about missing teeth and the eruption sequence dentists will be able to identify the missing teeth and correct the same.

Aim: The aim of this study is to analyse the prevalence of missing in the paediatric population between 8-17 years of age.

Materials and Methods: The data for the study n=4453 patients was collected by analysing the case sheets of patients who visited Saveetha Dental college from June 2019- February 2021.The collected data was analysed and subjected to statistical analysis using the SPSS software by IBM of version 23.

Results: From the results of the study, missing teeth in the 8 to 10 age group was highest in the second quadrant at 27.27% with most common missing teeth being left maxillary lateral incisor 15.76%, in the 11-13 age group it was highest in the third quadrant at 32.39% with most common missing teeth being left mandibular lateral incisor 16.37% and in the 14 -17 age group it was highest in first quadrant at 40.87% with the most common missing teeth being right maxillary first premolar 15.08%. It is also observed that the most common cause of missing teeth in 8-10 age group is due to congenital absence at16.46%, in 11-13 age group due to trauma at 16.46% and in 14-17 age group due to caries at 18.90%.

Conclusion: Missing teeth is a very common dental anomaly encountered these days. From the present study it can be concluded that the most common cause of missing teeth was congenital absence of it. Larger community based studies should be conducted to estimate more precisely the causes for missing teeth. They are very important to be analysed so that they can prevent complications that can occur. In our study missing teeth is being analysed at an earlier age group of 8-17 reducing the chances of future complications.