Journal of Oral Health and Oral Epidemiology
Volume:7 Issue: 2, Spring 2018

In this manuscript, fluoride releasing dental materials controlling demineralization in fixed orthodontic patients, and the current strategies to prevent white spots were evaluated.
General literature review was carried out in SciVerse ScienceDirect databases. The search strategy included the terms from Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) created by National Library of Medicine.
44 relevant studies were included and the respective data were extracted. Many studies showed new alternatives for the treatment of white spot lesions by the use of orthodontic appliances.
Patients receiving fixed orthodontic treatment should be instructed in a proper brushing technique using a fluoride containing toothpaste, and high risk patients should be bonded with fluoride releasing agent. Additionally, it is recommended to apply fluoride varnish periodically during orthodontic treatment.

Isthmuses are narrow and strip shaped connections between two canals containing pulpal tissue that may encompass bacteria as well. They are hardly accessible for cleaning; therefore, success and failure of root canal treatments could be affected by their presence. The present study was carried out aiming to evaluate the incidence, location, and type of isthmus in mandibular second molars (MSMs) among individuals of an Iranian population.
80 MSMs with inclusion criteria, belonging to individuals of an Iranian population were collected and disinfected. After embedding the samples’ roots in the acrylic resin, teeth were sectioned horizontally at 2, 4, and 6 mm distances from the apices. Then they were viewed and recorded by a stereomicroscope under × 30 magnification. According to Kim classification, two endodontists recorded the number of canals, incidence, and type of the isthmuses. In cases of disagreement, a third endodontist was involved to judge on the right opinion between the two. The acquired data were analysed using chi-square test.
The results showed that 96.3% and 3.75% of MSMs had two and three roots, respectively. Type V (described in the following) was the most frequent type of isthmus at mesial and distal roots. C-shaped canals composed 3.7% of the samples and showed isthmus at all the three sections. There was a significant difference in the distribution of isthmuses (P According to this study, different types of isthmuses prevail in high rate of mesial and about half of the distal roots of MSMs, which are important for root canal cleaning and shaping.

Dental anomalies are typically detected in radiographic screening. The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the dental anomalies found in panoramic radiographs taken from the study population in Ardabil, Iran, in 2015-2016.
The present study was conducted on 1800 panoramic radiographs obtained from 799 men and 1001 women in the Radiology Department, Dental Faculty of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil. The radiographs were precisely evaluated in terms of various dental anomalies, including root dilaceration, missing teeth, impaction, retained deciduous, supernumerary teeth, peg lateral teeth, talon cusp, taurodontism, and lingual pit. The data were analyzed using the chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests.
The results of this study revealed that 331 patients had at least one dental anomaly. Dilaceration with 42.0% was the most common anomaly. The other anomalies detected in the radiographs included missing teeth, impaction, lingual pit, peg lateral teeth, retained deciduous teeth, supernumerary teeth, talon cusp, and taurodontism with a rate of 20.2%, 18.4%, 10.8%, 10.2%, 7.8%, 6.6%, 1.5%, and 0.3%, respectively. No cases of microdontia, macrodontia, germination, and fusion were observed. Dental anomalies were more incident among women than men (P = 0.010). Furthermore, the detected anomalies had a higher rate in maxilla compared to mandible (P = 0.010).
As the findings of this study indicated, dilaceration was the most common dental anomaly, followed by missing teeth and impaction, respectively.

Individuals with disability usually suffer from complex oral problems and marked physical limitations, and therefore need special dental care. The dentists’ attitude and perceived educational barriers for oral health promotion among the individuals with disabilities were evaluated in the present study.
In this cross-sectional study, 193 dentists participating in the 54th International Congress and Exhibition of Iranian Dental Association in 2014 were invited to complete a valid and reliable questionnaire. The questionnaire included questions on attitude, satisfaction with training courses, perceived barriers to learn about oral health of patients with disabilities, age, gender, office location (city), and experience of treating patients with disabilities. The results were analyzed in SPSS software using linear regression analysis.
A total of 177 questionnaires were collected. The mean age of the participants was 35.5 (10.1) years, and 53.8% of the participants were men. The mean score of attitude and perceived barriers was 27 out of 52, and 13.6 out of 24, respectively. Dentists were not satisfied with education they had received. The most important barrier was the shortage of experts for training (52.1%). The linear regression model controlling the confounders revealed a better attitude among dentists with higher satisfaction with their academic education and among those perceiving less barriers in receiving the related academic educations.
The dentists’ attitude towards the oral health promotion of patients with disabilities was not in a desirable level. The dentists satisfied with their training during academic education had a better attitude towards treating these patients, indicating the need for more extensive interactive training programs.

Inflammatory Periapical lesions are the most common periapical lesions. These lesions are often diagnosed based on clinical and radiological examination, which may be different from the histological finding. The present study was carried out with aim to assess the rate and to compare clinical and radiographic features with histological diagnosis of periapical pathology.
This retrospective study was conducted on dental school pathology records in Kerman, Iran, from 1996-2014. Cases with incomplete records and without net histology diagnosis were excluded. Age, gender, site of lesion, clinical diagnosis, and histopathological diagnosis were extracted from the records. The data were analyzed using chi-square test in SPSS software. A P value of 5% was considered as the significance level.
1854 cases met the inclusion criteria. 129 of the cases were periapical inflammatory lesions. The mean age of individuals was 29.39 ± 15.14 years. Periapical cysts were the most incident lesions in clinical and histopathologic diagnosis. An overall of 98.9% of histopatologic diagnoses were compatible with clinical diagnosis. Inflammatory periapical lesions in maxilla were greater and this difference was significant (P = 0.001). Inflammatory periapical lesions were higher among men compared to women, with significant difference (P = 0.001).
This study showed that periapical cysts were the most incident inflammatory lesions followed by periapical granuloma.

Parents’ attitudes towards different aspects of dentistry especially the use of behavior management techniques (BMTs) can greatly effect a child’s cooperation in a dental office. The present quasi-experimental study was conducted with the aim to assess the effect of a verbal explanation on parents’ acceptance level of the most common BMTs used in pediatric dentistry.
A videotaped presentation showing the 6 most commonly used BMTs in Iran was presented to 60 parents recruited by a convenient sampling method. Using visual analogue scale (VAS), the acceptance level of each BMT was measured before and after an explanation on the reasons of each BMT. Paired t-test, repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent t-test were used for statistical analysis of data. Significance level was set as 0.050.
Giving a verbal explanation on BMTs had a statistically significant effect on the acceptance of BMTs. Tell-show-do (TSD) and hand-over-mouth (HOM) techniques achieved the highest and lowest mean scores of parental acceptance, respectively. The acceptance of physical restraint (P = 0.013) and parental presence/absence (PPA) (P = 0.015) of parents was obtained higher among men compared to women using t-test.
Giving an explanation to parents while performing a BMT is effective in raising parent's acceptance of the technique. Non-invasive methods such as TSD and PPA of parents are the more favorable methods to parents.

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are the gold standard for providing evidence in clinical research. The present study was performed with the objective to assess the quality of reports of RCTs in orthodontics in PubMed-indexed journals published by Iranian authors from 2007 to 2017.
All the articles on orthodontics published from 2007 to 2017 and indexed in PubMed with Iran affiliations were reviewed and quality evaluation was performed on them using JADAD checklist.
A total of 23 RCTs were evaluated. The mean of total score was 3.09 out of 5 and only 39.1% of the articles had appropriate methods of blinding and randomization. The cause for withdrawal was given in 65.2% of the articles.
The results of this study indicated that the quality of RCTs published by Iranian authors in orthodontics was acceptable, however improvements were necessary.

In recent years, propolis has been introduced as one the most efficient agents against cariogenic bacteria. However, due to the lack of data on the propolis collected from Kandovan (Easthern Azarbaijan, Iran), this study was designed to investigate the effect of this type of propolis on Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans).
In this experimental study, the ethanolic extraction of propolis (EEP) was prepared with different concentrations (1%, 3%, 5%, and 10%) while the distilled water was incorporated as control. The antibacterial efficacy was tested via two standard methods including the agar disk diffusion and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) tests. Finally, the resulting data were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Bonferroni post-hoc tests (a = 0.05).
The obtained MIC was 2.5 mg/ml. However, in disk diffusion test, the 1% and 3% EEP solutions did not exhibit any zone of inhibition, however the 5% EEP showed very strong antibacterial effect (P The EEP extracted from Kandovan had significant antibacterial effect against S. mutans when prepared in 5% concentration. Therefore, this type of propolis could be considered as one of the most efficient propolis against S. mutans.