Prevalence of partial edentulousness among the patients reporting to the Department of Prosthodontics Sri Ramachandra University Chennai, India: An epidemiological study

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To determine the occurrence of various missing teeth pattern among the partial edentulous patients residing in Chennai who are undergoing treatment for the replacement of missing teeth in the Department of Prosthodontics, Sri Ramachandra University Chennai, India. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: Study was undertaken from January 2014 to October 2014, and the design was a descriptive cross-sectional study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Five hundred and sixty-one persons aged between 13 and 87 years (267 males and 294 females) were selected, intraoral examination was done visually and results were recorded on specially designed clinical examination forms. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Data were analyzed using statistics SPSS 19.0 version (IBM India Private Limited Bangalore) to investigate the relationship between quantitative variables. RESULTS: The results showed the patients with Kennedy's Class III were found to be the most prevalent among all the groups (55%). The most common modification in all the groups was Class III modification I (26%). It was also found that Kennedy's Class III was founded more in the age group of 31–40 with 54.4% in the maxillary arch and 47.2% in the mandibular arch. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study show that the Kennedy's Class III was the most commonly occurring and were found to be more predominant in the younger group of population.