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Meta-Analysis
. 2020 Oct 6;16(1):22.
doi: 10.1186/s13005-020-00237-z.

Dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children's worldwide, 1995 to 2019: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Mohsen Kazeminia  1 , Alireza Abdi  1 , Shamarina Shohaimi  2 , Rostam Jalali  1 , Aliakbar Vaisi-Raygani  1 , Nader Salari  3 , Masoud Mohammadi  4
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children's worldwide, 1995 to 2019: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Mohsen Kazeminia et al. Head Face Med. .

Abstract

Background: Early childhood caries (ECC) is a type of dental caries in the teeth of infants and children that is represented as one of the most prevalent dental problems in this period. Various studies have reported different types of prevalence of dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children worldwide. However, there has been no comprehensive study to summarize the results of these studies in general, so this study aimed to determine the prevalence of dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children in different continents of the world during a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Methods: In this review study, articles were extracted by searching in the national and international databases of SID, MagIran, IranMedex, IranDoc, Cochrane, Embase, ScienceDirect, Scopus, PubMed, and Web of Science (ISI) between 1995 and December 2019. Random effects model was used for analysis and heterogeneity of studies was evaluated by using the I2 index. Data were analyzed by using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (Version 2) software.

Findings: In this study, a total of 164 articles (81 articles on the prevalence of dental caries in primary teeth and 83 articles on the prevalence of dental caries in permanent teeth) were entered the meta-analysis. The prevalence of dental caries in primary teeth in children in the world with a sample size of 80,405 was 46.2% (95% CI: 41.6-50.8%), and the prevalence of dental caries in permanent teeth in children in the world with a sample size of 1,454,871 was 53.8% (95% CI: 50-57.5%). Regarding the heterogeneity on the basis of meta-regression analysis, there was a significant difference in the prevalence of dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children in different continents of the world. With increasing the sample size and the year of study, dental caries in primary teeth increased and in permanent teeth decreased.

Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the prevalence of primary and permanent dental caries in children in the world was found to be high. Therefore, appropriate strategies should be implemented to improve the aforementioned situation and to troubleshoot and monitor at all levels by providing feedback to hospitals.

Keywords: Caries; Meta-analysis; Prevalence; Primary and permanent; Tooth.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow diagram of study selection
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Funnel plot of the results of the prevalence of dental caries in primary teeth in children
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Funnel plot of the results of the prevalence of dental caries in permanent teeth in children
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Forest plot of the results of Prevalence of dental caries in primary teeth and 95% confidence intervals worldwide
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Forest plot of the results of Prevalence of dental caries in permanent teeth and 95% confidence intervals worldwide
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Meta-regression analysis of the relationship between the sample size and the prevalence of dental caries in primary teeth in children in the world
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Meta-regression analysis of the relationship between the year of study and the prevalence of dental caries in primary teeth in children in the world
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Meta-regression analysis of the relationship between the sample size and the prevalence of dental caries in permanent teeth in children in the world
Fig. 9
Fig. 9
Meta-regression analysis of the relationship between the year of study and the prevalence of dental caries in permanent teeth in children in the world
Fig. 10
Fig. 10
Providing the results of the prevalence of dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children in different continents
Fig. 11
Fig. 11
Result of cumulative meta-analysis based on primary dental caries
Fig. 12
Fig. 12
Result of cumulative meta-analysis based on permanent dental caries
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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