Dental health examination and the pediatrician: an orientation to dental health according to developmental age groups.

There are a variety of oral/dental findings presented in the oral cavities of children that are of interest to the examining pediatrician. There are oral pathologic conditions and soft tissues anomalies. These include developmental anomalies and variations of the soft tissue, benign mucosal lesions, benign mesenchymal lesions, cysts and pseudocysts, odontogenic cysts and neoplasms of the jaws, benign nonodontogenic neoplasms of the jaws, and inflammatory lesions in bone. There are anomalies in the developing dentitions of children that a pediatrician needs to be aware of also. These include anomalies of number, size, shape, structure, and color. Certain childhood and systemic diseases also have oral manifestations which may aid in the diagnosis of a medical condition and which may need to be managed by the pediatrician as a part of comprehensive care. The pediatrician should appreciate that dental health of children can be divided into four age groups to aid in the understanding, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of oral dental phenomena and concerns. These age groups are conception to age 3, 3-6 (the primary dentition years), 6-12 (the transitional dentition years), and adolescence.