Assessment of Occlusion in Primary Dentition among Preschool Children with Down Syndrome

Aim: To assess the occlusion in primary dentition among Saudi preschool children with Down syndrome (DS).
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted over 10 months on 124 Saudi preschool children with DS aged 3-6 years with a complete set of primary dentition. The children were randomly selected from DS centers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The primary molar relationship, canine relationship, overbite, overjet, posterior crossbite and scissors bite were recorded in centric occlusion.
Results: The mesial step was the most observed (60.5%) molar relationship among the participants (P=0.001). Moreover, the Class III canine relationship represented 62.9% of the sample (P=0.001). More than one-third of the sample (39.5%) had an edge-to-edge overbite followed by an anterior open bite in 28.2% of the sample (P=0.027). The majority of the children examined (48.4%) had an edge-to-edge overjet followed by reversed overjet (anterior crossbite) in 27.4% of the sample (P=0.001). One-third (33.8%) of the children had a posterior crossbite.
Conclusion: The results of this study are considered to be of importance to pediatric dentists making treatment decisions for preschool children with DS.