Background and Objectives: Caries in primary dentition affects the quality of child’s life and can interfere with the child's daily activities and growth process. This disease is affected by various factors such as diet, oral hygiene and socioeconomic factors. Considering the importance of the awarness of mother in a child’s life, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the dmft index and the level of mothers’ awareness related to oral hygiene. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 432 mothers with children under 7 years old. After determining the dmft index, the children's demographic information and the mothers' awareness level were evaluated with 13 questions. In order to analyze the data, Kruskal-Wallis test and Pearson's correlation coefficient were used. Results: The mean score of awareness for mothers with boys and girls respectively was 3.70±2.25 and mothers 3.58±2.36 with no significant difference (P=0.757). The most correct answers from mothers to questionnaire’s questions, were given to the size of toothpaste for children aged 3 to 6 years old (70.8%) and the time to start flossing for children (38.2%). The relationship between mother's awareness and dmft index was not significant (P=0.076). Conclusion: Mothers' knowledge level had no significant relationship with children's dental caries, but mothers' knowledge of caries prevention was lower than mean. Although maternal knowledge is only one of the several factors that can influence children's oral health behaviors, mothers' education should be considered as an important intervention to caries prevention.

Background & Aim: Missing and supernumerary teeth are considered as dental developmental anomalies. These anomalies may lead to problems and complications such as dental asymmetry, poor esthetics, midline shift, dental crowding, malocclusions, caries, diastema, ectopic eruption, impactions, delayed eruption, external root resorption as well as loss of adjacent tooth’s vitality in some cases. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of missing and supernumerary teeth in 3 to 5 years old kindergarten children of Tehran in 2005. Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted by oral examination of 1000 children. Kindergartens were randomly selected in three major areas of Tehran province, namely Rey, Tehran-city and Shemiranat regions. Oral examination was carried out by counting the teeth under adequate lighting. Results: The prevalence of supernumerary and missing teeth in this study was 0.3% and all the anomalies were observed in boys. All cases of supernumerary teeth were in maxilla. From the three cases with missing teeth, two cases were in the maxilla (83%) and one case in the mandible. The anomalies observed in two samples occurred unilaterally in the lateral incisors (67%). Conclusion: Since missing and supernumerary primary teeth may lead to problems in the permanent dentition, early diagnosis and continuous monitoring of successors seem to be necessary to avoid further problems and therefore complicated treatments.

Background and Aim: The sandwich technique is a restorative method where the lost dentin is replaced with glass ionomer (GI) cement and the lost enamel is replaced with composite resin. Various modifications of this technique have been introduced in order to increase the longevity of this restoration. Hence, the aim of this review article was to assess the use of sandwich technique in primary teeth. Materials and Methods: After an initial screening of potentially relevant articles through electronic search of journals indexed in PubMed Central, Science Direct, Wiley Online Library, Springer and Google Scholar, articles on sandwich restorations in primary teeth were included. Results: Literature suggests that the sandwich technique is successfully practiced in carious lesions in permanent teeth,however, very few studies are done on primary teeth. Conclusion: With the advent of newer resin cements and bonding agents, the sandwich technique is much simplified. However not enough clinical studies are available in the literature on the sandwich technique and its modifications in primary teeth. More studies need to be conducted in primary teeth using this restorative technique.