[Oral evaluation in various pathological conditions in children]

The current knowledge concerning the study of dental cavities cannot account for all clinical aspects of some subjects' resistance to cavity formation. This work concerned, in a first stage, the study of dental anomalies (number, shape and structure), in different groups of children with common diseases. This study has enabled us to evaluate the caries index of the same groups of children. It concerns 13 children with somatotropin deficiency (including 36% of children without any caries), 18 children with chronic renal insufficiency (including 56% of children without any caries), 4 children with Down's syndrome (no caries), one female child with erythropoietic porphyria (no caries), one girl with Incontinentia pigmenti (no caries) and one girl with familial, hypophosphatemic vitamin-resistant rickets (no caries). The percentage of children without any caries is particularly high in the groups under study, in spite of a poor oral hygiene. It seems that such factors as the conditions of dental development, the structure and morphology of the teeth or its environment, are capable of having an effect on caries formation.