Aim: To compare the prevalence of PEIR in Australian and Saudi Arabian children and to investigate the relationship of PEIR with dental development.
Study design: Panoramic (PAN) radiographs of 842 Australian and 456 Saudi children were screened for PEIR. The dental ages of the children with and without PEIR were assessed from the PAN radiographs using the method of Demirjian and co-workers.
Results: The subject prevalence of PEIR was not statistically significant between Australian (2%) and Saudi children (0.6%) (p>0.1). The teeth most commonly affected by PEIR were the mandibular second molars and premolars. Dental impaction was observed in 31% of teeth with PEIR compared to only 0.1% of control teeth (p<0.0001). Children with PEIR showed a mean delay in dental development of 0.54±0.85 years compared with ageand gender-matched controls (p<0.0001).
Conclusions: The present study provides the first evidence that there are no differences in PEIR prevalence between Australian and Saudi populations, and that dental development is significantly delayed in children with PEIR.
Keywords: dental impaction; pre-eruptive caries; pre-eruptive intracoronal resorption.