Missing teeth and their replacement in dental school and community practice patients

This study compared tooth mortality and the pattern of prosthodontic replacement in dental patients at the University of Connecticut Dental School and patients from dental practices in the surrounding area. The dental school data were obtained from the dental records of a randomly selected 20 percent of the total patients registered during a one-year period. The dental practice data were collected through an epidemiologic monitoring system that has been established with the local dental society. The age and sex distribution of the two samples were similar. The mean number of missing teeth in dental school patients was higher (7.63 vs. 4.87), as was the proportion of edentulous persons (9.8 percent vs. 3.4 percent). The overall rate of tooth replacement in the community sample was higher than in the dental school. The proportion of fixed and removable prosthodontics was similar in the two samples (85 percent removable and 15 percent fixed). The results suggest that individuals available for the teaching of prosthodontic procedures in the dental school have many of the same intraoral conditions related to prosthodontic treatment as do patients in dental practices in the local community.