A Nation-wide Prevalence of Malocclusion Traits in Saudi Arabia: A Systematic Review

The aim of this article is to establish a comprehensive nation-wide prevalence of malocclusion traits on the sagittal, vertical, and transverse planes of space in Saudi Arabia.

A systematic search was conducted in three databases (Medline via PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science) and complemented with a manual search of Google Scholar and the reference list of included studies. Original studies of Saudi Arabian healthy individuals at any age were included. The quality and the risk of bias of the included studies were assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute's appraisal tool. The data about the selected malocclusion traits on the sagittal, vertical, and transverse planes of space were extracted and pooled.

Out of 7163 identified titles, 11 studies were finally included. The risk of bias was high in two studies, moderate in eight studies, and low in one study. The studied age groups were from early childhood to late adulthood, with a total sample size of 19,169 participants. The majority of the studies recruited their sample from school/public sources, whereas the remaining three studies recruited their sample from dental (non-orthodontic) clinics.

Within the limitations of this study, pooled prevalence of Angle's Class I molar relation in Saudi Arabia was similar to other populations but Angle's Class II and Class III molar relations were lower and higher, respectively. These differences could be attributed to population-related differences in craniofacial morphology. Teeth crowding, teeth spacing, and midline shift, along with increased overjet and overbite, were among the most common malocclusion traits occurring in Saudi Arabia.