Topical Application Of Fluoride In Patients Undergoing Orthodontic Treatment - A Retrospective Study

Malocclusions are not life threatening conditions, yet they cause psychological and social problems in a patient's life by affecting their oral tissues. The most common side effect of orthodontic treatment is that they cause changes in the oral flora due to formation of non cleanable surfaces. Fluoride application has been associated with prevention of carious lesions in oral cavities. Thus the aim of the study was to analyse the use of topical fluoride application in patients undergoing orthodontic treatment. A retrospective analysis was done using dental archiving software present in saveetha dental college where details of 700 patients intraoperative photographs were checked for cross verification. The study was followed after the ethical approval of retrospective analysis by saveetha research board. Results were analysed and tabulated using chi square test. It is observed that most of the patients don't use topical fluoride application as a preventive measure prior to orthodontic treatment. Within the limits of this study of application of fluoride, patients of age group 10-25 years(9.3%) are the predominant age group to undergo topical application of fluoride than other age groups and majority of the males(8.3%) had undergone topical fluoride application than the females(5.15%). From this we can conclude that only younger individuals are advised by their dentists for topical application of fluoride and older people should also be advised for fluoride application.