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Do Oral Maintenance Programs Associate with Reducing Tooth Loss? A Retrospective Study in a Japanese Dental Clinic

ADACHI Naoko
Doctoral Program, Department of Public Health, Graduate School of Medicine,
The University of Tokyo
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Key Words: oral health, oral maintenance, adherence, tooth loss

This study examines the association between oral maintenance and tooth loss, adjusted by related variables. This is important because there are previous studies that indicate that there is no necessary association between adherence of oral maintenance and tooth loss. This study analyses that association with adjustment for confounders.


Patients' data from clinical records of a private dental clinic in Japan were analyzed. The inclusion criteria for this study is adult patients followed up ≧ 20 years and still visiting at the dental clinic from May 2012 to April 2013, and whose age at the time of starting maintenance was 16 to 64. In this study, we define the term adherence for oral maintenance as the percentage of how each patient keeps to his/her requested visit. Variables are tooth loss, adherence, sex, age, DMFT (decayed, missing and filled teeth), bone loss, smoking and diabetes. Study design is a retrospective study. This study shows that Moderate adherents were at 5.4 times higher risk than high adherents, and low adherents lost their teeth 9.8 times more than high adherents. Further research will be needed to resolve the causal relationship.

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