Letter to the Editor

Dear Sir,I refer to a recent paper in the December 2002 issue(Dent Traumatol 2002; 18: 287^298). The paperclaimedthataMedline searchwasperformedforpub-licationsbetween1981and 2002 on the subject of trau-matic injuries to the primary teeth. As I scanned thepaper, I was surprised at a rather glaring omissionof a seminal paper on the subject from 1987 (CrollTP, Pascon EA, Langeland K.Traumatically injuredprimary incisors: a clinical and histological study.ASDC J Dent Child 1987 November^December;54(6):401^22).1

While we can all certainly be guilty of omissions inreference lists at times, it seems unfortunate that theauthor missed such an important paper that corre-lated clinical, radiographic, and histologic ¢ndingsfrom138 extracted primary incisors with a history oftraumatic impact. The paper met all the criteria forselection for the review.

A review of injuries to primary incisors that takesevidence-based studies into account is not completewithout the above-mentioned reference. While thedamage has been done in terms of future authorswho may choose to quote the December publication,thus perpetuating the exclusion of the studies per-formed by Croll et al. from further analysis, I hopethose readers who read the paper will ¢nd theenclosed abstract from PubMed useful.

I urge authors who take on the daunting task of amultiyear review of the literature to be certain thatkey papers on the subject are included.

Sincerely,

RichardJ. SimonsenAssociate Dean, Arizona School of Dentistry & OralHealth

Dental Traumatology 2003; 19: 118 Copyright # Blackwell Munksgaard 2003Printed in Denmark. All rights reserved DENTAL TRAUMATOLOGY

ISSN 1600–4469

118

1PubMed abstracthttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3478370&dopt=AbstractASDC J Dent Child1987 November^December; 54(6):401^22.Traumatically injured primary incisors: a clinical and histological study. Croll TP, Pascon EA, Langeland K. Department of Pediatric Dentistry, University of Pennsylvania,School of Dental Medicine.Worldwide epidemiological studies state that from 8 to 30% of children up to 7 years of age sustain injury to primary incisors, including crownfracture, root fracture, tooth avulsion, and dental displacement, which result in malformation of permanent incisors depending upon their state of development. In this study,traumatized primary incisors were evaluated clinically and radiographically, with the following data recorded: exact or approximate time interval of traumatic episode(s) andextraction, mobility, color change, sensitivity to percussion/palpation, swelling, sinus tract, caries, crown/root fracture, periodontal/periapical lesions, external/internal rootresorption, mineralization, and obturation. Based upon the local damage and developmental age, 138 teeth were extracted, fixed in10% formalin, and processed for histolo-gical evaluation according to routine methodology. Histologic findings were: the presence of varying extent of necrosis, bacteria in the area of necrosis ^ not in all cases ^neutrophilic leukocytes, chronic inflammatory cells, pulpal calcifications, resorption/apposition, and circulatory changes.The blood pigment distinguished hemorrhage due toextraction from pathologic circulatory changes. All the described reactions varied in intensity and extent with the time interval and the assumed force of the original trauma.Physical trauma to primary teeth caused pulpal damage, which could involve periapical tissue, depending on the extent of the initial damage.