title: Influence of tobacco use in dental caries development.
abstract: This review article describes different forms of tobacco usage and its direct relationship with the prevalence of dental caries. Smoking along with co-existing factors like old age, bad oral hygiene habits, food habits, limited preventive dental visits and over all health standards, can be associated with high caries incidence. However, a direct etiological relationship is lacking. Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) causes dental caries in children but no studies have been reported in adults. Existing findings are not sufficient and conclusive enough to confirm that ETS causes dental caries. Oral use of smokeless tobacco (ST), predominantly tobacco chewing, is presumably a positive contributing factor to higher incidence of dental caries. Unfortunately, published studies are not converging towards one single factor through which tobacco usage can have direct relationship to dental caries.
authors.affiliation: Department of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Medicine, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic. drvellappally@rediffmail.com
authors.forename: Sajith
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vellappally
authors.forename: Zdenek
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Fiala
authors.forename: Jindra
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Smejkalová
authors.forename: Vimal
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Jacob
authors.forename: Pilathadka
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Shriharsha
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000139:chemically induced*; D006801:Humans; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects*; D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution / Q000009:adverse effects; D014030:Tobacco, Smokeless / Q000009:adverse effects
chemical_list: D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution