Children Oral Health Following Treatment under General Anesthesia: A Retrospective Study

Introduction: Dental treatment for children can be provided and completed in dental chair using one or more behavior management methods applied in dentistry. When these methods did not work, special behavior management technique such as treatment under general anesthesia (GA) may be provided for optimal dental treatment. The purpose of this study was to evaluate long term oral health status such as oral hygiene (OH), recall rate, behavior changes and development of new or recurrent carious lesions in children who received dental treatment under GA. Methods: Data were collected retrospectively from dental records of 433 children who received dental treatment under GA between 2006 and 2010. Collected data looked at 1) Age, 2) Gender, 3) OH before treatment and at the recall visits, 4) Behavior changes, 5) New or recurrent caries experience, and 6) Treatment of these lesions. Results: Age of patients ranged between 2 and 13 yrs. Boys to girls were 223 (51%) to 210 (48%) respectively. OH post operatively was significantly improved in comparison to that before treatment (p-Value < 0.0001). However, OH was almost the same among patients who attended recall visits (p-Value = 0.79). Number of patients who attended recall visits reduced significantly by time (p-Value < 0.0001). There was significant improvement in patient cooperation post operatively in comparison to that pre-operatively (p-Value < 0.0001). There was no significant difference in the incidence of new or recurrent carious lesions through recall visits (p-Value = 0.73). Conclusion: Dental treatment under GA did not seem to be effective in the improvement of OH or in reducing caries experience. However, children behavior showed some improvement in the follow up visits due to no active treatment required or simple dental procedures may be implemented.