ABSTRACT

Epidemiology deals with the population rather than the individual and its objectives are to classify the diseases and to determine the ways of prevention. The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of malocclusion types in individuals who requested to receive treatment and to find out the ways in which the treatments are made. The study comprised 1602 patients whose treatments were performed between the dates October 1998 and July 2002 in Selçuk University, Faculty of Dentistry, and Department of Orthodontics. Malocclusion types of the patients and the treatment methods to be applied were determined from case records. Malocclusion types were defined according to Angle’s classification and treatment alternatives and the methods for treatment were determined according to the results of the case meetings. The malocclusion types of the subjects for this study were Class I (61.69%), Class II (28.07%), and Class III (10.24%). While 34.49% of the patients were treated by extraction therapy, 65.51 % of them were treated by non-extraction therapy. The frequency of the specific anomalies was determined as follows: open bite 2.68%, impacted canine 2.18 %, polidiastema patients 1.62%, congenitally absent teeth cases 3.05% Class I was the most frequent malocclusion type. It was observed that the non extraction therapy was applied 2 times as frequent as extraction therapy. In the light of these findings, the clinic patient datas should be determined and compared in some periods.