Özet:

Background: Dental caries and its sequelae is a major public health problem. It affects both sexes, all races, all socioeconomic status and all age groups. One of the complications of untreated dental caries is dentoalveolar abscess.Objective: To determine the pattern of dentoalveolar abscess among patients attending a tertiary hospital in South-east Nigeria Methodology: A retrospective review of the hospital records of patients who attended and had oral clinical evaluation done in Preventive dentistry clinic of the Department of Preventive Dentistry, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu State, Nigeria from January 2013 to December 2015 was done. Results: A total of 113 patients were clinically evaluated and a diagnosis of dentoalveolar abscess was made ,75(66.4%) were females,38(33.6%) were males giving a female to male ratio of about 2:1 The age range of the patients was 17 to 93 years with a mean age of 39.3 ± 18.3 years. Dentoalveolar abscess was seen more in the 20-29 years age group, in mandibular first molars and was predominantly caused by dental caries. P-value= 0.124, P-value=0.319Conclusion: Dental caries and its sequelae affects both sexes, all races, all socioeconomic status and all age groups. Untreated dental caries results in dentoalveolar abscess. Prevention of disease and suffering should be a primary goal of any society that hopes to provide a decent quality of life for its people

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