Early Childhood Caries: a complex problem requiring a complex intervention

摘要

For all the advances that have been made in the prevention and treatment of dental caries in recent decades, Early Childhood Caries (ECC) remains one of the most heartbreaking conditions a dentist regularly encounters, and one of the most challenging to prevent and treat. Definitions for Early Childhood Caries and Severe Early Childhood Caries (S-ECC) were proposed in 1999 by a panel of experts convened to standardise reporting of the condition (Drury et al., 1999) and replace earlier terms such as "nursing bottle caries" or "baby bottle tooth decay" which ascribed a single cause to a condition which is now understood to have a complex aetiology involving biological, social and behavioural determinants. The term ECC covers any caries occurring in a child under the age of 6 years, whereas the definition of S-ECC relates to the site and severity of caries as well as to the age of the child. The rationale behind the definition was the importance, as a public health policy, to promote the goal that no child under 6 years of age should develop dental caries.