Dentistry By the Numbers: My March Top 5

I love numbers. Whether it’s analyzing finances or some kind of SABR advanced fielding metrics for baseball, I can sit around and look at spreadsheets for hours. Numbers are the universal language. Numbers can help us communicate and can capture our imagination. Here are five of my favorite numbers right now in dentistry.

1. Seven. A tooth that has a sealant is 7 times less likely to need a filling/restoration for the lifetime of the tooth. That’s an incredible number! Everyone that is at risk for dental caries/cavities should be getting dental sealants on their teeth. It’s a no brainer.

2. Two. The ADA recommends brushing your teeth 2 minutes 2 times per day. For a child (and many adults), two minutes can seem like an eternity. Electric toothbrushes like a Sonicare have built in timers that let you know if you have been brushing for the proper amount of time. Electric toothbrushes also allow you to brush more effectively, but they’re worth it for the built in timer alone.

3. Ten. I took some averages over various insurance plans and our cash fees, and the average ratio between the cost of a filling on a tooth versus a root canal and crown is 10. If a tooth has a small amount of decay that can be restored with a composite restoration, that’s wonderful, it can be taken care of and you’re on your way. If it goes undetected for a long period of time and requires more extensive treatment to the nerve (a root canal), the treatment cost is usually around ten times the cost! It’s not worth waiting until something hurts, ever.

4. 51 million. That’s the number of hours of school that are missed by children in the US every year while dealing with dental pain. Dental pain that could have been prevented with home care, proper diet, and regular checkups at the dentist. To me, this is a heartbreaking number; I can’t even believe it.

5. 67%. No floss = F. Sixty seven percent is the amount of tooth surface you are cleaning by brushing alone. The other 33%? You’re not going to get that unless you floss. In every school I went to, a 67% was an F! A periodontist friend of mine put on Facebook a few months back that his patient told him he would only brush or floss, but he wouldn’t do both, so pick one! Faced with this ridiculous dilemma, about every dentist that commented on the post agreed: floss.

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