Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 12, 2026
Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
A 12-year retrospective audit study of tooth loss in a general dental practice
1Charminster House Dental Practice, Bournemouth, Dorset.
Objectives:
To determine the incidence of periodontal disease in a general dental practice, and to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment in preventing tooth loss over a period of 12 years.
Design:
This was a single centre retrospective analysis.
Setting:
A general dental practice in Bournemouth.
Subjects And Methods:
Over a 6-month period from February 1997 to August 1997 records were made of all patients attending at the practice who had presented for dental examination between September 1985 and September 1986. A database was constructed to record the number of teeth present at the beginning of the study, those which at their initial exam had probing depths of between 5 and 6 mm, and those with 7 mm and greater. If teeth were lost, the date of the extraction was recorded.
Interventions:
All patients were treated by conventional dental therapy.
Main Outcome Measures:
Tooth loss was chosen as the end-point.
Results:
13% of the patients presenting initially had periodontal problems, and conventional treatment resulted in very few teeth being lost over the study period.
Conclusions:
Periodontal disease affected only a small number of the patients in the general dental practice. Those patients affected responded well to conventional therapy, resulting in very few teeth being lost during the period of study.
Related Concept Videos
01:15Teeth
In the bud stage, the tooth germ (an aggregation of cells) starts to form in the developing jawbone. During the cap stage, the tooth germ differentiates into enamel organ, dental papilla, and dental sac, which will later develop into the tooth's enamel, dentin and...
01:21Tooth Anatomy
The Crown, Neck, and Root
The visible part of the tooth is referred to as the crown. It's covered by enamel, the hardest substance in the human body. The crown is uniquely shaped for each type of tooth, allowing for different functions such as cutting, tearing, or grinding food.