Prevalence of Dental Malocclusions in Different Geographical Areas: Scoping Review

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) considers malocclusion one of the most important oral health problems, after caries and periodontal disease. Its prevalence is highly variable and is estimated to be between 39% and 93% in children and adolescents. Due to the importance of malocclusions in dentistry, the aim of our review is to assess the frequency of malocclusions among different geographical regions. A literature research was performed through the Pubmed, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, LILACS, Open Grey and Cochrane Library databases. The “PRISMA” guidelines were used for the following review. Fourteen studies were analysed for this review. Class I was found most frequently, followed by class II and finally class III. Considering the other anomalies, crowding was one of the most frequent with a prevalence of up to 84%, followed by spacing, which reached a frequency of 60%. Prevalence of crossbite and openbite was quite variable, while the evaluation of deepbite revealed more uniform values. The prevalence varied widely for most of the types of malocclusion in relation to the different populations, which suggests a role of genetics and environmental influences, typical of each population in determining dental problems.