Assessment of dental condition in young Polish adults using the BEWE index

Background
The amount of low-pH food and drink consumed by young people continues to increase, resulting in an increasing number of people with dental erosion.

Objectives
The aim of the study was to use the BEWE index to assess the level of dental erosion of young Polish adults.

Material and methods
Plaster casts of the maxilla and the mandible and intraoral photographs were taken from volunteers 16.7 to 19.3 years of age and evaluated. They were examined for the presence of symptoms indicating the occurrence of erosive processes. The Basic Erosive Wear Examination (BEWE) index was used to record the lesions. One person evaluated all the models and pictures after prior calibration.

Results
The BEWE index was evaluated on 251 pairs of models and images. Erosion symptoms were found to occur in 43.43% of the entire study group, representing 109 examined subjects. With most erosion symptoms, the lesions consisted of small amounts of tissue loss in one of the examined sextants. There was a slightly higher prevalence of erosive lesions on the male tooth (45.59%) than on the female (42.62%), with no statistical significance. The value of the cumulative BEWE index for individuals varied from 0 to 3, being 0 to 2 in 98.01% of cases (no risk of erosion) and 3 in 1.99% (low risk).

Conclusions
The risk of erosion among the studied adolescents was at a similar level as in other countries and occurred slightly more often in men than in women.