Retrospective Analysis of White Spot Lesions Among Orthodontic Patients

Objectives: The occurrence of white spot lesions (WSLs) is one of the main risks of orthodontic treatment. The present retrospective study aimed to analyze the prevalence of white spot lesions at the orthodontic clinic, School of Dental Medicine, University of Nevada Las Vegas (SDM, UNLV).
Methods: A retrospective keywords search of the clinical notes of UNLV School of Dental Medicine (SDM) patient charts in axiUm™ was performed using the search terms “white spot lesion”, “decalcification” and “orthodontics” to identify the cases where white spot lesions were present. The inclusion criteria encompassed patients who developed white spot lesions during orthodontic treatment at UNLV School of Dental Medicine (SDM).
Results: The records of 3,914 patients were identified to have one of the search keywords, narrowing the search terms to “orthodontics treatment” and “white spot lesion” resulted in 753 patients. There were 694 white spot lesions among 58 orthodontic patients (7.7%). Females with white spot lesions comprised 59.0% of the cases, while Hispanics and Caucasians (46.6% and 18.9%, respectively) represented the majority of the white spot lesions at SDM. The majority (57.8%) of the cases were maxillary teeth, the maxillary lateral incisors were the most affected teeth (28.8%). Maxillary anterior teeth comprised 40.9% of all WSL’s seen in the studied patient population.
Conclusions: Maxillary anterior teeth were the most affected teeth with WSLs; all lesions were associated with fixed orthodontic brackets.