Studies of many authors show that the prevalence of dental caries of deciduous teeth remains at a high level and a tendency of its growth is going on not only in Ukraine but also worldwide. Deciduous teeth play an important role in the normal development of the child’s organism, in particular in such functions as chewing, swallowing, breathing and speech formation. At the same time, teeth contribute to the proper formation of the permanent occlusion and significantly affect the quality of life and self-esteem of a child. In addition, untreated tooth decays lead to the formation of the foci of chronic odontogenic infection, promotes exacerbation of somatic pathology in children, and can cause premature loss of deciduous teeth. Therefore, the aim of our study was to investigate and analyze the prevalence and intensity of caries of deciduous teeth in children of 2 to 8 years old in Lviv. 245 children from 2 to 8 years old were observed to assess the state of their hard tissue in desiduous teeth. The survey results were added to the map of epidemiological survey, according to the WHO recommendations. Prevalence of caries decay and dft indices were used for children’s examination. Activity of the caries was determined using Bidenko criteria.

Prevalence. 72.65 ± 2.85 % of surveyed children had dental caries in their deciduous teeth. The lowest level of dental caries was revealed in 2-year-old children (25.71 ± 7,39 %). The highest prevalence of dental caries was found among 7-years-old children of (97.14 ± 2.82 %).The prevalence of dental caries of temporary teeth among male was slightly greater than among female children (73.02 ± 3.95 and 72.27 ± 4.12 %). Severity: Children who are 2 to 8 have an average 4.15 ± 0.17 decayed and felt teeth. The lowest rate of severity was found in 2-year-old children (1.46 ± 0.62 decayed and felt teeth), the highest – in 7-year-old children. Female had slightly higher rate of decayed and felt teeth in comparison with the level of dft among male representatives (4.24 ± 0.22 and 4.06 ± 0.25 tooth respectively).

Activity: 42.37 ± 3.16 and 38.22 ± 3.10 % of children had II and III degree of dental caries activity and only 19.21 ± 2.51 % of children showed I degree of caries activity. The significant decrease of the children with I degree of caries activity (33.33 ± 7.97 % to 5.56 ± 3.58 %) is observed with increase of the age of the patients. At the same time, obvious increase of the proportion of the children with III level of caries activity from 22.22 ± 7.03 to 47.22 ± 7.80 % was also noticed.

It was also revealed, that less than half of the teeth which had carious lesions (28.03 ± 2.87 %), from the total number of carious teeth (64.52 ± 3.06 %), were sealed. The lowest amount of sealed teeth was found among 4-year-old children (16.20 ± 6.32 %).

The highest percentage of teeth which needed treatment was found among 2-year-old children (80.39 ± 6.71 %). Moreover 7.45 ± 1.67 % of deciduous teeth were extracted prematurely. The highest amount of prematurely extracted teeth were found among children of 7 years (11.72 ± 5.02 % among male and 15.66 ± 6.08 % among female children).

Keywords: children, dental caries, deciduous teeth, the degree of dental caries activity

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