Comparison of dental caries in Croats from the early medieval period and the 20th century

Abstract

Objective: To compare dental caries frequency in the Croatian population exhumed from two archeological periods and compare two methods: International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS) and DMFT (Decayed-Missing-Filled-Tooth) index.

Materials and methods: The study included 279 teeth from 69 human remains: Set I of 30 remains and 126 teeth dated from 9th to10th centuries A.D. and Set II of 39 remains and 153 teeth from the recent 20th century. Methods used for caries prevalence were ICDAS and DMFT. Tooth wear was recorded according to the Brabant index.

Results: ICDAS scoring system showed significantly higher caries frequency in Set I of 64.34% and in Set II 59.47%, compared to DMFT method with 16.52% for Set I and 28.75% for Set II. Dental wear in Set I showed 73.91% and in Set II 73.15%, so no significant difference was observed.

Conclusions: Depending on the ICDAS or DMFT method used for caries detection, different results have been obtained whereby the ICDAS system has a more precise and advanced approach for caries lesions.

Keywords: DMFT; Dental caries; ICDAS; Medieval period.