What’s new for the clinician – summaries of recently published papers (September 2021)

It is estimated that 621 million children throughout the world have untreated caries on primary teeth. 1 Early childhood caries (ECC), which affects preschool children, progresses rapidly and is associated with pain, difficulty chewing, weight loss, difficulty sleeping, altered behaviour, and a poorer quality of life for affected children and theirfamilies. Children with dental caries have greater treatmentneed, which is expensive and not readily accessible in most developing countries. In South Africa, ECC is a major public health problem with caries rates among children as high as 70% in some provinces.