Introduction. The presence of caries in children under 71 months of age is defined as Early Childhood Caries. Materials and methods. A retrospective descriptive study was conducted by examining 534 children with ages between 1-5 years, from Varna, along a 4-year period. Results and discussion. Prevalence of early childhood caries in the sample was 71.6% (95%CI: 67.41%- 75.46%), of which only 28.4 % (95%CI: 24.53%- 32.58%) were caries-free. The distribution of caries in 1-year old children is the lowest, barely 7.3% (95%CI: 3.55%- 11.04%) among the clinically examined ones. The highest number of children with caries is recorded at ages of 5 years – namely 65.8% (95%CI: 61.9%- 69.47%). Average caries intensity in the examined group was 4.05±1.83. Most affected were maxillary incisors – 57.2% (95%CI: 51.87%-62.36%), followed by primary molars – 40.3% (95%CI: 35.01%-45.5%). Conclusions. Early Childhood Caries may cause significant problems in children’s lifestyle and in most cases must be treated under general anesthesia.
Keywords:- early childhood caries
- prevalence.