Epidemiological research on the prevalence and causes of edentulism in the population of Varna, Bulgaria

Introduction: Complete edentulism presents a serious health and social problem. Over the last few decades, factors such as the increase of elderly population and of human life expectancy have also proved to have significant social importance. A number of studies have been devoted to exploring the causes for extraction of permanent teeth across countries and regions. The reason that prompted the present research was the need to establish the most common causes of edentulism and its prevalence across the two genders in the population of Varna, Bulgaria.Aim: The aim of the present study is to determine the most prevalent cause of complete edentulism, the age group in which the very last tooth is most likely to be extracted and its incidence with regard to gender ratio.Materials and Methods: Over the period 2014–2019, 1180 patients, aged 40-90 years, sought dental care treatment at the Faculty of Dental Medicine at the Medical University of Varna, Bulgaria. They were examined at the dental offices at the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. The statistical data was processed using cross-tablulation in SPSS® Statistics software and included uni- and bi-variate distribution analysis.Results: The patients examined included 684 women and 496 men at a mean age for both genders of 68.4 years. The study established the ratio between the two main causes of edentulism: dental caries and its complications, and periodontitis and its complications. Conclusion: Awareness of the most common causes of edentulism can contribute to better prevention and subsequent delay in the age when the last tooth is extracted