MEDIUMResearchTier 2
Literature Review Explores the Role of Vitamin D Deficiency in Pediatric Dental Caries
Summary & scoring by The Bell Brief (Dr. Jennifer Bell) using the Drill-Down Protocol (Drill-Down Score) — not the original publisher.
Why it matters for dental
Dental practices that treat children should consider adding vitamin-D status screening or supplementation counseling to caries-risk assessment protocols, because deficiency is now linked to higher pediatric caries prevalence.
Key points
- A 2020 meta-analysis cited in the review reported global caries prevalence of 46.2% in primary teeth and 53.8% in permanent teeth among children.
- The literature review specifically examines vitamin-D deficiency as an additional, modifiable caries risk factor.
- Pediatric and general dentists who manage high-caries populations may integrate dietary history or serum 25(OH)D testing into existing CRA forms.
- No specific implementation date or guideline is provided; practices can adopt changes at their discretion.
Who should care
AssociateSpecialistAcademia
Read the original on Today's RDH
Full reporting and any paywall content live on todaysrdh.com. We summarize and score; we do not republish.