Epidemiology and Management of Dental Fluorosis

Dental fluorosis arises from excessive fluoride intake during enamel formation, leading to hypomineralisation that ranges from subtle opacities to pronounced brown staining and enamel pitting. Epidemiological surveys indicate marked geographic variation, with endemic regions often linked to naturally high fluoride in groundwater. Prevalence is typically highest among children under 11 years, though changes in appearance over adolescence and adulthood may reduce observable severity. Risk factors include fluoride concentration in drinking water, dietary sources, temperature-driven water consumption patterns and socioeconomic determinants that govern access to safe water and preventive services. Clinically, fluorosis is classified using indices that guide both population‐level surveillance and individual diagnosis. Management strategies encompass community defluoridation technologies, such as activated alumina filters or bone char treatment, alongside policy interventions to optimise drinking-water fluoride concentrations. Educational campaigns and routine monitoring of water supplies and fluoride supplements are critical to balance caries prevention with minimised fluorosis risk. Emerging approaches integrate geospatial risk mapping and novel diagnostic imaging to support targeted interventions and real-time monitoring of enamel changes.

Research from Nature Portfolio

No recent Nature Portfolio content available.

Epidemiology and Management of Dental Fluorosis publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in epidemiology and management of dental fluorosis across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Dean’s Index: A categorical scale ranging from normal enamel to severe fluorosis, used for clinical assessment of fluorosis at the individual tooth or person level.

Community Fluorosis Index (CFI): A population-level measure combining fluorosis severity and prevalence across a community to gauge public health significance.

Fluorosis Risk Index (FRI): A tool for longitudinal cohort studies that quantifies enamel changes over time, facilitating comparison of fluorosis progression among age groups.

Defluoridation: The process of removing excess fluoride from water sources through chemical or physical methods to reduce fluorosis risk.

Hydrogeogenic fluoride: Fluoride that originates naturally from geological formations and enters groundwater, often leading to endemic fluorosis in affected regions.

References

1. A Systematic Review on Water Fluoride Levels Causing Dental Fluorosis. Sustainability (2023).
2. Severe magnitude of dental and skeletal fluorosis and its impact on society and environment in a part of Manbhum-Singhbhum Plateau, India. BMC Public Health (2024).
3. Fuzzy K-Nearest Neighbor Based Dental Fluorosis Classification Using Multi-Prototype Unsupervised Possibilistic Fuzzy Clustering via Cuckoo Search Algorithm. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2023).
4. Generalized permanent dentition fluorosis severity becomes less evident over time among a birth cohort. Frontiers in Oral Health (2023).
5. Factors influencing the relationship between fluoride in drinking water and dental fluorosis: a ten-year systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Water and Health (2019).