Reasons for tooth loss amongst Danish children and adolescents with traumatic dental injuries: an outcome-selected...

This outcome-selected retrospective descriptive study aimed to describe the clinical characteristics, complications and care pathways of permanent teeth with traumatic dental injuries that resulted in tooth loss or were assessed as having inevitable tooth loss within Danish municipal dental care.

This outcome-selected retrospective descriptive study included 65 patients with 80 permanent teeth of which 55 teeth had already been lost when data were collected, and 25 teeth were expected to be lost later. The material included dental records, radiographs and clinical photographs. Thirty variables were obtained and analysed using descriptive statistics including general patient data, trauma diagnosis, complications, number of visits, number of clinicians and follow-up duration in order to analyse tooth loss or inevitable tooth loss in the near future.

Forty-five teeth (56%) were originally diagnosed with avulsion, whilst the rest were diagnosed with subluxation, extrusion, intrusion, lateral luxation, enamel-dentine fracture, enamel-dentine-pulp fracture, crown-root fracture with pulp involvement or root fracture. Replacement resorption was observed in 35% of the teeth (n = 28) and a combination of multiple complications occurred for 25% of the teeth (n = 20).

Avulsion was the most common TDI resulting in tooth loss, followed by crown-root fracture with pulp involvement. Tooth loss was also observed in teeth initially diagnosed with less severe injuries. Based on the observations in this study, opportunities for optimisation of follow-up and treatment were identified.