Pattern of partial edentulism in correlation to age and gender among a selected Saudi population

Objective: Documenting the prevalence and pattern of partial tooth loss is very important for identifying the prosthetic needs of the studied community as well as aiding the provision of educational and preventive materials suitable for this population in terms of language and composition. The aim of this study was to find the patterns of partial edentulism among a selected Saudi population and to correlate the pattern of partial edentulism with age and gender. Subjects and Methods: This study was conducted on male and female dental patients of age above 21 years attending the screening clinics of King Fahad Hospital, Almadinah Province , Saudi Arabia. It was based on visual examination of the selected subjects for determining the pattern of the partial edentulism according to Kennedy’s Classification System with Applegate's modification rules. The cases belonged to Kennedy’s classes I, II, III and IV were categorized according to age and gender of the patient as well as the relation to the maxillary and mandibular arches. Results: The results of this study showed that; the patients with Kennedy’s Class III were found to be the most common pattern (56.5%), followed by Class II (23.6%) and class I (19.2%) while class IV was the least among the other classes (0.7%). It was also found that Kennedy’s Class III was founded more in the age group of 21–30 (78.5%) and least in the patients above 60 years old (31.8%). Conclusion: Kennedy’s Class III was the most commonly encountered pattern of partial edentulism in both upper and lower arches and Kennedy’s Class IV was the least common pattern. With age, an increase in the tendency to Class I & Class II and a decrease in Class III was shown with a statistical significant difference between the different age groups, on the other hand there was no statistical significant difference between both genders.