Malocclusions assessment methods in children and adolescents

Abstract

Introduction: The assessment of malocclusions is fundamental to establish a diagnosis and to determine patients’ treatment needs. Orthodontics indexes allow to assess and grade a malocclusion, also to determine the prevalence of these alterations in a given population. Objective:To determine which are the most used indexes for malocclusion severity assessment in children and adolescents. Methods: A qualitative systematic review of the last 10 years was performed, using PubMed database with free-text search, including the terms “malocclusion severity index” and “orthodontics occlusal indices”. Also, the first of these terms was used for a complementary research in the Journal of Orthodontics of the British Orthodontics Society, the American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics and the European Journal of Orthodontics. Articles in English, French, Portuguese or Spanish were considered, which included at least one established malocclusion index and which were applied to children and adolescents of both sexes, between 2 and 19 years old. Results: 157 articles were included in the review. The DAI index (50.96% of articles included) was the most used, followed by IOTN (41.4%) and ICON (5.1%). Conclusions: According to the characteristics of several existing orthodontic índices, some clinical parameters can be omitted, underestimated or overestimated, creating differences in determining patient’s treatment needs. It is not yet possible to have an ideal index for all purposes, so it is advisable to continue researching and to develop new indices.