Dental injuries in Copenhagen schoolchildren, school years 1967–1972

abstract The Copenhagen Municipal School Dental Service examines and treats about 50,000 children each year. As from (he beginning of the 1967/68 school year, a special registration form for traumatic dental injuries was introduced with this School Dental Service. During the 5‐year period from 1967–1972 a total of 9,965 traumatic injuries was registered in the school population. The boy/girl ratio was 1.6:1 and the largest number of injuries for both sexes is found in the age 8–9 years. About 25–30 % of the traumatized children sustained traumata more than once. By means of computation it was discovered that 34.9 % of boys and 23.1 % of girls may be assumed to have sustained a trauma before leaving school in the 9th grade. In 25 % of the cases the injury was treated no later than 2 hours after the accident and 40 % were treated on the same day. A very clear connection between the number of injuries and the school year was observed. Generally one tooth was involved and it was extremely rare for a trauma to involve more than four teeth. There were a total of 12,989 injuries to 11,767 teeth. The majority of cases involved the maxillary central incisors (70 %). Soft tissue injury was the only reason for the examination in 15 % of the cases. The relation between lip closure and trauma was also examined. One‐fourth of those examined had an incomplete lip closure.