Dental development in subjects with thalassemia major

The aim of this study was to evaluate the dental development of patients with ss-thalassemia major and to compare it with unaffected children.

Panoramic radiographs of 44 thalassemic patients taken before the age of 16 years were examined. The subjects consisted of 29 males and 15 females ranging in age from 4.9 to 15.7 (mean = 10.8+/-2.9) years and 44 controls matched for age and sex. The seven left mandibular permanent teeth, second molar to central incisor, were rated on an eight stage scale using the methods described by Demirjian et al.10 The stage of each tooth was converted to the corresponding numeric value and then all values were added to obtain a dental maturity score which corresponded to a dental age. Dental and chronologic ages were compared using a paired t-test. The relationship between the chronologic age and the amount of delay was also determined.

Thirty-nine patients had a delay in the development of their dentition. The mean developmental dental delay was found to be 1.01 years (p<0.05). The range in delay was from 0.1 to 2.9 years. There was no significant difference between the mean chronologic and dental age of the control group (p> 0.05). The amount of delay in dental development increases as the patient's age increased (p<0.05). Males were found to have a greater delay (mean 1.16 years) than females (mean delay 0.73 years), but this difference was not statistically significant.

The delay in dental development in ss-thalassemia major varied according to the patient's age. This positive correlation parallels the general growth of thalassemic children.