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Introduction: The oral health of
children with special needs is most often impaired, with a high
prevalence of caries and its complications. Due to the impossibility of
establishing an adequate child-dentist contact and a large number of
carious teeth, dental treatment under general anesthesia is often
indicated in this population of children.
Aim: To perform a comprehensive analysis of the dental treatment of
children with special needs under general anesthesia at the Clinic of
Dental Medicine in Niš over a period of ten years.
Material and methods: A retrospective study analyzed the dental
documentation of children with special needs in whom dental treatment
was performed under general anesthesia at the Clinic of Dental Medicine
in Niš in the period from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2019.
Results: 286 children with special needs (14.7%) out of a total
number of 1943 admitted at the Department for Preventive and Pediatric
Dentistry of the Clinic of Dental Medicne in Niš during the analyzed
period, originally from Nišava, Jablanica, Pčinja, Toplica, Rasina, and
other administrative districts of Serbia, were treated under general
anesthesia. In the second half of the ten-year follow-up period, almost
twice as many children were treated regarding the first five years. The
records show that 1754 teeth were restored, 28 endodontically treated,
and 1417 extracted.
Conclusion: A high percentage of children with special needs treated
under general anesthesia and a constant increase in the number of such
children in Southeastern Serbia suggest the need for close cooperation
between dentists of health care centers in Southeastern Serbia and
dentists at the Clinic of Dental Medicine in Niš, a tertiary dental
health care center towards which patients of this part of Serbia
gravitate.
Key words:
children with special needs; tooth restoration; general anesthesia
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