SELF-PERCEIVED ESTHETICS , CHEWING FUNCTION AND ORAL HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE IN PATIENTS TREATED WITH NEW REMOVABLE DENTURES
Figure 3 . Mean differences between the baseline and the after-treatment scores of the OES , OHIP14 and CF questionnaires in the CD and the CD-RPD group of patients
However , with the mean after-treatment OES summary score as the dependent variable , the effect of the factor type of treatment was statistically significant ( F = 5.60 , p < 0.01 ), while gender ( F = 0.02 ; p = 0.9 ) and age ( F = 0.8 ; p = 0.37 ) showed no significant effects . Patients with CDs in both jaws rated their aesthetics significantly better ( higher scores ) than the CD-RPD group .
4 . Discussion
The treatment of complete or partially edentulous patients has long been a major challenge in prosthodontics . Many studies had confirmed significant benefit of an implant-prosthodontic therapy . 20-22 Removable dentures receiving support from dental implants have been improving patients ’ OHRQoL and / or chewing function better than . the conventional removable denture therapy
20-22
However , the conventional complete and removable partial dentures have still been the most common treatment in the world , mostly due to medical and / or economic factors . 23-25 Therefore we decided to analyze treatment results obtained by conventional removable dentures . The success of conventional treatment with removable dentures often depends mostly on the patients ’ adaptive capacity to overcome reduced retention and stability of dentures . 26 Patient-based outcome measures using psychometrically verified questionnaires have been recognized as important measures necessary to understand problems regarding orofacial issues . The results of such specific measures help dentists in planning and decision making . 27-29 We measured OES , CF and OHRQoL by standardized questionnaires to get better insight into the most common types of conventional removable denture therapy . The most frequent type of removable denture patients have been either completely edentulous patients in both jaws , or those who have been completely edentulous in
the maxilla and Kennedy Class I ( with only incisors and incisors and canines left ) in the mandible . Therefore we have chosen such groups of patients . As expected , both treatment options elicited significant treatment results and all after-treatment summary scores showed improvement of the issue measured ( OHRQoL , CF , OES ), compared to the baseline scores . The CD-RPD treatment showed slightly higher treatment effects than the CD treatment ( although not significantly ), which may be attributed to the fact that all CD patients had a previous pair of dentures , while some of the CD-RPD patients had no previous dentures in the mandible and therefore had worse baseline scores . Significantly lower after-treatment ratings of orofacial esthetics in the CD-RPD group than in the CD group may be attributed to the visibility of denture clasps in the mandible . Slightly better after treatment chewing function assessment in the CD- RPD group than in the CD group was attributed to the better retention of RPDs due to denture clasps as compared to complete mandibular dentures . However , slightly lower OHIP14 after-treatment scores registered in the CD group ( better OHRQoL ) may be attributed to clasp visibility . Some studies reported that besides the type of treatment , gender and age may also influence
23 , 30
clinical outcomes by new removable dentures . To test the premise , the 2 way analysis of variance ( ANCOVA ) was performed with the OHIP14 , the OES and the CFQ after treatment summary scores as dependent variables ; gender and the type of treatment as independent variables , and the age as a covariate . The results revealed that gender and age yielded no significant effects ( p > 0.05 ), either for a chewing function , or for the OHRQoL or orofacial aesthetics . However , limitations of the study have to be mentioned , such as various pre-treatment summary scores , as well as variability in a number
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