TIME OF ERUPTION AND RELATIONSHIP WITH BODY FATNESS OF PAKISTANI CHILDREN FROM A COUNTRY-WIDE STUDY.

Background: Teeth emergence is ordinal, chronological, and age-specific.1,3 Most of the time, the permanent teeth start erupting at the age of 6 years and complete the process by the age of 12 years. The objective of this study were to determine the time and sequence of eruption of permanent teeth of the four ethnic groups of Pakistan and compare them with the body fatness. Materials & Methods: This study was conducted in four cities of Pakistan (Karachi, Larkana, Peshawar and Quetta) from January 2022 to March 2023 to determine the time and sequence of eruption of permanent teeth of Pakistani children. Systematic cluster random sampling was applied to choose the participants. A total of 8787 children with at least one 'just erupted tooth' were collected from 163 schools in the above-mentioned cities. Each selected child was examined under a bright light in a sitting position and each tooth was recorded as either unerupted, just erupted, or erupted. Height and weight were measured using a digital scale without the shoe. The age of the child was taken from the schools' register. A questionnaire containing demographic information and some dietary habits was completed. A total of 8550 cases were collected and analyzed. Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric ANOVA, Tukey/Dunnett's T3 postHoc, and chi-square tests were applied for statistical analysis. Results: Out of 8550 children, 4526 (52.9%) were males. The percentage of underweight, normal, overweight, and obese children were 4.2%, 78.2%, 11.8%, and 5.8% respectively. Overweight and obese children were significantly higher than the internationally assigned percentage in those categories. Most of the teeth in central incisors, lateral incisors, and canines were erupted between the ages of 6-7 years, 7-8 years, and 9-11 years, respectively. Most of the posterior teeth erupted between 9-10 years (first pre-molars), 9-11 years (second premolars), 5-7 years (first molars), and 10-12 years (second molars). The sequence of the eruption was seen as Maxillary: FM, CI, LI, FPM, SPM, C, SM; Mandibular: FM, CI, LI, C, FPM, SPM, SM. Children of Quetta and Karachi showed late eruption as compared to children of Larkana and Peshawar. Mean values of overweight or obese children showed lower mean values than underweight and normal children. Conclusions: This multi-center study showed that the children of Karachi were exposed to the late eruption in most of the teeth as compared to children of Larkana, Quetta, and Peshawar. Furthermore, except for the first molars, all other teeth showed early eruption for overweight and obese children as compared to underweight and normal-weight children. This trend is comparable to the international findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]