Comparative assessment of anterior spacing in Japanese-Brazilian and Caucasian children in the deciduous dentition

Evandro Eloy Marcone FERREIRA, Eduardo Cardoso PASTORI, Rívea Inês FERREIRA, Helio SCAVONE JUNIOR, Karyna Martins do VALLE-COROTTI

Objective: To carry out a comparative evaluation of prevalence of anterior spacing characteristics in Japanese-Brazilian and Caucasian children in the deciduous dentition. Methods: Two samples of children aged 2-6 years were selected: 405 Japanese-Brazilians from 36 schools in the State of São Paulo and 510 Caucasian children from 11 public institutions in São Paulo city. Spacing features in the maxillary and mandibular arches were assigned to four categories: Generalized spacing, only primate spaces, no spacing and crowding. Logistic regression was used to analyze the effect of age, gender and ethnic group on the prevalence of the occlusal characteristics (α = 0.05). Results: In JapaneseBrazilians, generalized spacing was the most prevalent characteristic in the maxillary (46.2%) and mandibular (53.3%) arches. The frequency of primate spaces was higher in the maxillary arch (28.2% versus 15.3%). Concerning no spacing (21.7% – 26.4%) and crowding (4% – 4.9%), the variation between arches was relatively small. In Caucasian children, no spacing and exclusive presence of primate spaces showed distributions similar to that observed in Japanese-Brazilians. Generalized spacing was diagnosed in approximately 50% of the arches. Crowding prevalence was higher in the mandibular arch (12.8% versus 3.9%). The regression model adjusted for crowding prevalence was the only significant one. Only the ethnical factor was significant (p<0.001). Conclusions: It may be suggested that anterior spacing features in the deciduous dentition would not be influenced by age or gender. Nevertheless, Caucasian children would have 2.8 times more chances of presenting crowding in the mandibular arch, in comparison with Japanese-Brazilians.

Keywords: Dental occlusion. Diastema. Deciduous dentition.

How to cite: Ferreira EEM, Pastori EC, Ferreira RI, Scavone Junior H, Valle-Corotti KM. Avaliação comparativa do espaçamento anterior em nipo-brasileiros e leucodermas, na dentição decídua. Dental Press J Orthod. 2011 Sept-Oct;16(5):155-62.

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