Prevalence of malocclusions in school-age children attending the orthodontics department of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences.

To provide quantitative data about the prevalence of malocclusions in the Shiraz orthodontic population, we studied the records of 700 patients (391 girls and 309 boys) aged 6-14 years attending the undergraduate Department of Orthodontics at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. The prevalence of Angle class I, II and III malocclusion of first molars was 52.0%, 32.6% and 12.3% respectively. Skeletal class I, II and III malocclusion was found in 18.0%, 70.0% and 12.0% respectively. There were no significant differences between the sexes in the prevalence of different types of skeletal malocclusion. Children with class III were significantly younger (mean age 8.9 years) than those with class I (9.6 years) or class II (9.7 years) malocclusions. Orthodontics students need more education and training in the management of class II malocclusion to improve the overall quality of care for patients.