Sensitivity of different part-mouth recording methods using a modified tooth wear index.

Background: High prevalence of tooth wear (TW) worldwide makes it important to assess its level in different populations. In developing countries, a shift towards geriatric population makes the evaluation of this condition even more relevant. Most indices for tooth wear are full mouth indices, which make mass population screening challenging. The objective of this study was to establish whether part-mouth recordings using selective teeth can provide similar sensitivity of the modified tooth wear index.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out over 40 working days on 400 dentate individuals aged 14-70 years, having at least 16 scorable teeth. Firstly, full mouth tooth wear of study population was recorded and categorized into four groups based on severity and extent of tooth wear. Following this, group wise data extraction was done using the full mouth scores and six different types of part-mouth analyses was done to arrive at the system which provides the best sensitivity. These part-mouth recordings should be specific such that it can differentiate to the same groups of tooth wear in the reduced data as well. Data were analyzed by means of SPSS version 21.0 (P<0.05).

Results: In 83%, at least one tooth had the exposed dentine. Part-mouth recording using "12 anterior teeth" as index teeth showed a high level of sensitivity (87.8%) than others for measuring tooth wear data.

Conclusions: The prevalence of tooth wear is high and "the part-mouth recording applied to the 12 anterior teeth" is a faster and reliable method in large population surveys for measuring tooth wear.