Is Dental Treatment Safe in Pregnancy? A Dentist’s Opinion Survey in South India

Background: Oral health of pregnant patients is considered as an essential component of the overall health of the mother and the developing fetus. The aim of this study was to know dentist perspective regarding treatment options in pregnant patients. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among dentists of south India by mailing a selfadministered questionnaire to collect data on management choices of the pregnant dental patient related to treatment practices and therapeutic choices of dentists and also theirsociodemographic and practice characteristics. Results: A total of 726 questionnaires was collected. Around 28.5% of the participants took radiographs for pregnant patients. Mostly, all the surveyed dentists would extract a non-restorable painful tooth during pregnancy. Around 89.3% prescribe a mouthwash and 37% would perform root planning and periodontal surgery for gingival bleeding and calculus deposits. Majority of the dentists (92.9%) prescribe amoxicillin. By far paracetamol was the most popular analgesic agent (91%).The majority of the dentists (62.3%) would use plain xylocaine Conclusion: There is a clear lack of knowledge about the appropriate management of the pregnant dental patient amongthe surveyed dentists regardless of their sociodemographic and practice characteristics necessitating continuous education on the dental management of pregnant dental patient

Intraoral malignant melanoma

Primary oral mucosal melanoma is a rare aggressive neoplasm and accounts for only 0.2‑8% of all reported melanomas. It is a malignant neoplasm of melanocytes that may arise from a benign melanocytic lesion or de novo from melanocytes within normal skin or mucosa. It is considered to be the most deadly and biologically unpredictable of all human neoplasms, having the worst prognosis. In this article, we report a case of oral melanoma in a 52‑year‑old female patient with a chief complaint of black discolouration of the maxillary gingiva and palate.Keywords: Gingiva, malignant neoplasm, oral mucosal melanoma, palateNigerian Medical Journal | Vol. 54 | Issue 4 | July-August | 201

Intraoral malignant melanoma

Primary oral mucosal melanoma is a rare aggressive neoplasm and accounts for only 0.2-8% of all reported melanomas. It is a malignant neoplasm of melanocytes that may arise from a benign melanocytic lesion or de novo from melanocytes within normal skin or mucosa. It is considered to be the most deadly and biologically unpredictable of all human neoplasms, having the worst prognosis. In this article, we report a case of oral melanoma in a 52-year-old female patient with a chief complaint of black discolouration of the maxillary gingiva and palate

Quality of reporting of randomized controlled trials in ten academic Indian dental journals

Background: Biased results from poorly reported trials can mislead decision-making in health care at all levels, from treatment decisions for the individual patient to formulation of national public health policies. Objective: To evaluate the quality of reporting of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in ten Indian dental journals over the period 2011–2012. Materials and Methods: This study included all RCTs published as full-text articles reported in ten Indian dental journals over the period from 2011 to 2012. The relevant trials were identified by searching Medline. Hand searching of the journals was also carried out by three of the authors to check if any potential trial was missing. Each article was assessed against the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials criteria tool, as described by Schulz et al. (2010). Results: The mean number of criteria present per article was 12.2 (standard deviation [SD] =2.2) and only 5 of 106 articles got total possible score. Most of the articles (69%) did not mention about justification for sample size calculation, 89% of the articles did not mention about allocation concealment, 86% of the articles did not mention about funding and 63% of the articles did not mention about limitations of the study. Conclusion: The quality of reporting of Randomized clinical trials in ten Indian academic journals was poor

An Endocrine Jaw Lesion: Dentist Perspective in Diagnosis

Brown tumor is a rare nonneoplastic focal giant cell lesion that occurs in hyperparathyroidism patients with a prevalence rate of 0.1% in jaws. We report an extremely rare case of brown tumor in mandible of a 40-year-old female patient that presented as the first clinical manifestation of hyperparathyroidism. Dentist played a pivotal role in the present case by the early diagnosis of lesion and its intervention

Dual Lesions: A Diagnostic Dilemma

Glandular odontogenic cyst (GOC) is a rare aggressive developmental cyst of the jaw. It most commonly occurs in middle-aged people with mandible anterior region being the most affected site. This lesion can present as a unilocular or multilocular radiolucency and has high recurrence rate. The histopathologic features of the GOC are complex and often coincide with the features of dentigerous cyst, radicular cyst, and low-grade central mucoepidermoid carcinoma (CMEC). At times, the microscopic features are so similar to central low-grade mucoepidermoid carcinoma that it becomes highly impossible to distinguish the two entities even with various advanced investigations. The reported case represents one such diagnostic dilemma occurring in the maxilla which is a rare site, and the lesion/s appeared as two distinct entities, that is, GOC and CMEC on either aspects of the same side of maxilla clinically, yet showing continuity on advanced imaging and demonstrating histopathological perplexity

Knowledge, attitude, and practices toward oral health among school teachers in "Guntur city," Andhra Pradesh, India

Introduction: School teachers play an important role in the all-round development of children. Quite often, they play an important role in general health education as well as oral health education in children. To perform the above tasks, teachers should have required oral health knowledge and positive attitude about oral health. Objectives: The objective was to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices about oral health among school teachers in Guntur city, Andhra Pradesh. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted, and data were collected with pretested self-administered questionnaire. A total of 248 school teachers was selected by simple random method from the list of primary and high school teachers working in Guntur city. Questionnaire consisted of seventeen questions on knowledge, attitude, and practice. Each favorable and unfavorable response was given a score of 1 and 0 respectively. Total score of 60% or more for each domain was considered "satisfactory" whereas < 60% as "unsatisfactory. Data were analyzed with SPSS-17 (Chicago Inc.,) and Chi-square, test was used to test the statistical significance among various variables. Results: A total of 248 school teachers was participated in this study, 64.9% of the teachers had satisfactory knowledge about oral health. About 194 (78.2%) had satisfactory attitude about oral health and around 191 (77%) teachers had satisfactory oral hygiene practice methods. Conclusion: Teachers required being further educated about oral health through an effective media to deliver oral health education to students

Ectopic Compound Odontoma in the Buccal Mucosa: Report of a Rare Case

Eruption of tooth into extraosseous locations is an extremely rare condition. We report a case of a six-year-old girl child with tooth-like structure erupting from the right buccal mucosa. Clinical, radiographic, and histopathologic examination suggested the diagnosis of compound odontoma. Very few cases have been reported so far, where tooth has been located completely in the soft tissue and a variety of names have been used for that condition. A brief review of the literature and the ambiguity in naming the situation is discussed