Oral health status and prosthodontic conditions of Chinese adults: A systematic review

Purpose: To assess oral health and prosthodontic conditions of Chinese adults and the changes in these conditions over time. Materials and Methods: PubMed was searched by combining the keyword China with dental health survey, oral health, tooth loss, DMFT (decayed/missing/filled teeth), dental prosthesis, or dentures. After selection, 12 studies remained. Data were obtained from these studies on DMFT, DMFT components, and teeth present and were tested against the following independent variables using analysis of variance: age, residence, and year of data collection. Results: DMFT increased with age (P=.0001). Rural subjects presented higher DMFT based on the higher "decayed" component (P=.003), which increased markedly for subjects over 45 years of age. The number of teeth present decreased with increasing age (P=.0002). The results showed that Chinese subjects who are 65 years old have an average of 20 teeth. Urban subjects had more teeth present (P=.05), although no difference was seen for the "missing" component of DMFT. In general, few prosthodontic data could be extracted from the selected studies, and these data were often unspecific or inconclusive. Conclusions: The "filled" component of DMFT remained consistently low for all ages, indicating limited care. All outcomes were independent from year of data collection, indicating unchanged care. Outcome aggregation on the number of functional teeth and prosthetic care was impossible. For future reports, it is recommended to include additional information about location and function (in terms of occluding pairs) of teeth present when describing oral health status.