Tooth Loss Patterns in a Clinic Population

Objectives: Describe tooth loss patterns and oral health quality of life measures in a clinic population.

Methods: We studied a convenience sample of 476 clinic patients (49% women, mean age: 58.7 ± 15.3 years, range: 18 – 92 years). Tooth loss was assessed from review of dental records and full-mouth radiographs. Patterns of tooth loss, excluding third molars, were enumerated by half-mouth, yielding 952 observations in the 476 subjects. A pattern was defined as a unique combination of teeth present. We defined “frequent” tooth patterns as those occurring in at least 1% of the sample, i.e., in 10 or more half mouths. “Infrequent” tooth patterns were defined as patterns occurring only once in the sample. The association between the number of teeth and oral health-related quality of life measured by OHIP-14 was investigated using a regression analysis.

Results: We observed 314 unique patterns of half-mouth tooth loss. Fourteen “frequent” tooth patterns were observed, which accounted for 453 (47.6%) of the observations. No teeth were missing in 207 (21.7%) of the half-mouths, which was the most prevalent pattern overall. Frequent half mouth patterns clustered into two groups: 1) 14, 13, or 12 teeth present; and 2) 0, 1, 2, or 4 teeth present. More teeth were associated with less impaired oral health-related quality of life, i.e., lower OHIP-14 scores (regression coefficient: -0.51, 95% confidence interval: -0.62 to -0.41), adjusted for the influence of age, gender, and level of education. We observed 213 “infrequent” half-mouth tooth patterns that accounted for 22.4% (213/952) of the observations and 67.8% (213/314) of the patterns in the sample.

Conclusion: While many unique half-mouth patterns of tooth loss were observed in this clinic population, relatively few patterns accounted for nearly 50% of the observations. OHIP-14 was inversely associated with the number of remaining natural teeth.