Endodontic Indications among Patients Visiting a Tertiary Care Center: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study.

INTRODUCTION: Endodontics is the study of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases or injuries to the dental pulp. The ultimate goal of modern dental care is tooth preservation and root canal therapy/treatment is an available therapeutic strategy to retain teeth. The aim of the study is to find the prevalence of patients visiting a tertiary care center who had endodontic indications. METHODS: The descriptive cross-sectional study included 516 patients accepted for endodontic treatment, between August 2019 and December 2019 in a tertiary care center. Ethical approval was taken from the ethical review board of Nepal Health Research Council (reference number: 425-2019). Convenience sampling method was used. The data were entered in Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20 software and analysed using descriptive statistics. Point estimate at 95% confidence interval was calculated along with frequency and proportion for binary data. RESULTS: Out of 1740 patients, 516 (29.66%) (95% Confidence Interval= 21.46% - 27.51%) had endodontic indications. Symptomatic irreversible pulpitis 306 (59.30%) was the most prevalent pulpal disease. Maxillary teeth 300 (58.13%) had more endodontic diseases. While in individual dental elements most affected by endodontic diseases was the mandibular molar teeth 149 (28.87%). Females 348 (67.44%) were predominant for demanding endodontic management than males 168 (32.5%). CONCLUSIONS: More female patients and of younger age group in this study population demanded endodontic treatment. Irreversible pulpitis was responsible for the majority of the cases treated and more affected were the posterior teeth.

Age Estimation from Attrition of Permanent Molars.

BACKGROUND: The average stage of attrition in permanent first and second molars is an established method of age estimation in the adult population. The study was conducted with an objective of age estimation from the average stage of attrition of permanent molars. METHODS: A total of 451 individuals of age more than 20 years were examined. Nepalese individuals with intact first and second permanent molars in the maxillary and mandibular arch on either side were included. The average stage of attrition of the maxillary first and second permanent molars on either side was calculated and subjected to regression analysis to derive equations. RESULTS: Among a total of 451 participants, 231 (51.22%) were females and 220 (48.78%) males, with a mean age of 44.3 ± 13.9 years. There was a strong correlation between age and average stage of attrition of molars. The correlation was stronger for upper molars compared to the lowers. Additionally, the mean of the difference between real age and estimated age was lower for maxillary compared to mandibular molars. Compared to age estimation by univariable regression, multivariable regression had greater accuracy. Similarly, estimation of age from maxillary molars was more accurate as compared to mandibular (difference in years: 3.82 ± 3.03 for maxillary molars and 5.17 ± 4.2 for mandibular molars). CONCLUSIONS: Maxillary teeth are better for age estimation and using both maxillary first and second permanent molars gives better accuracy.