Number of teeth, prevalence of caries and periapical lesions in insulin-dependent diabetics.

Ninety-four long and 86 short duration diabetics and 86 non-diabetics, aged 20-70 yr, participated in the study. The clinical and radiographic examination comprised recordings of the number of teeth, carious lesions, restorations, endodontically treated teeth and periapical lesions. There were no significant differences between long and short duration diabetics and non-diabetics in the number of teeth and the total number of decayed and filled tooth surfaces (DFS %). However, long duration diabetics exhibited more decayed proximal tooth surfaces (D %) than non-diabetics. There were no significant differences between long and short duration diabetics and non-diabetics in the mean number of endodontically treated teeth and periapical lesions. Women with long diabetes duration, however, exhibited more endodontically treated teeth with periapical lesions than women with short diabetes duration and women without diabetes. Long duration diabetics exhibited teeth with periapical lesions to a greater extent than the other groups. On the whole, diabetics and non-diabetics exhibited a similar caries frequency but among the diabetics there was a group of individuals who had more periapical lesions than the non-diabetics.