Clinical Study Regarding the Association Between Some Etiological Factors and Tooth Wear

Background: Loss of hard dental tissues is a permanent problem of the dentition that affects all age groups and is regarded as part of the ageing process and a modern problem for dentistry.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of some etiological factors connected with the tooth wear process.
Material and method: One-hundred-fifty patients were investigated, 84 of them presented different types of tooth wear: abrasion, attrition, erosion and the combination of these. In order to determine the etiological factors we used the association of anamnestic questionnary, clinical examination, digital photography. The etiological factors were classified according to their action with age, oral hygiene habits, parafunctions and unhealthy habits, chronic diseases associated with regurgitations and vomiting. Frequencies and percentages of variables were reported. Chi-square test was used to test associations between categories of variables at 5% level of significance.
Results and discussion: 51.19% of patients had more than one type of tooth wear and 22.62% had attrition. There was a significant association between tooth wear lesions and age, toothbrushing technique and type of toothbrushes used. Diet, parafunction and vicious habits, regurgitation and vomiting were not significant for tooth wear lesions.
Conclusions: The acknowledgement of the etiological factors is important for prevention and treatment approaches.