[Technical specification and consensus on routine oral health examinations for adults].

Abstract

China has a large number of patients but a low rate of medical advice-seeking in oral diseases, leading to difficulties in the prevention and treatment of oral diseases. This situation calls for basic oral health examinations, which would increase the public awareness of oral health and fundamentally enhance the effectiveness of comprehensive prevention and control of oral diseases. As a risk-driven primary care service, oral health examination achieves early war-ning, comorbidity management, and resource optimization through standardized protocols. This program enables the early detection and diagnosis of oral diseases, facilitating timely intervention and improving the oral health status of the public. To standardize the flowchart of oral health examinations and ensure the technical results of the examinations conducted by different examination institutions, this study forms an expert consensus on the technical specification of routine oral health examinations for adults. This consensus, which includes oral examination items, oral examination elements, management of abnormal results and follow-up dental cares, provides standardized guidelines for dentists and dental medical institutions, the keystones in the development of prevention and control network for oral diseases, to conduct routine oral health examinations.