Title Using Mouth Guards To Reduce The Incidence And Severity Of Sports-Related Oral Injuries
Clinical Question Are athletic mouth guards effective in reducing dental injuries compared to not using mouth guards in sports activity?
Clinical Bottom Line Even though there is low level evidence to address the question, the answer would be yes, mouth guards reduce dental injuries in sports activity. (See Comments on the CAT below)
Best Evidence  
PubMed ID Author / Year Patient Group Study type
(level of evidence)
17138717Newsome/2006AthletesReview article
Key resultsThe question at hand does not have many, if at all few, evidence based articles that are subjected to Randomized Control Trials. With this said, the review article listed does contain comprehensive, detailed searches for other relevant trials in association to the question. Since the level of evidence was low, even to the point of limited, I was able to conclude that mouth guards do reduce injury to teeth, and this is based on the experience of those who had worn mouth guards to reduce injury.
Evidence Search Search (\"Mouth Protectors\"[Mesh] AND \"Athletic Injuries\"[Mesh]) AND \"Tooth Injuries\"[Mesh] Limits: Review,Search (\"Mouth Protectors\"[Mesh] AND \"Athletic Injuries\"[Mesh]) AND \"Tooth Injuries\"[Mesh] Limits: Randomized Controlled Trial, Search (\"Mouth Protectors\"[Mesh] AND \"Athletic Injuries\"[Mesh]) AND \"Tooth Injuries\"[Mesh] Limits: Meta-Analysis, Search (\"Mouth Protectors\"[Mesh] AND \"Athletic Injuries\"[Mesh]) AND \"Tooth Injuries\"[Mesh]
Comments on
The Evidence
I was able to find a couple of Randomized Control Trials, but both were not specific enough to the actual question even though they were relevant to the search. There was of course no meta-analysis and most of the articles were review articles. I chose this review article because it is endorsed by the Council of the ADA and is the most concise article featuring relevant trials of mouth guards and athletes. The reasoning, I believe, for such low levels of evidence is that the patient pool for dental injury in sports activity is low compared to other patient problems concerned with dental trauma.
Applicability This article is applicable to those that are in need of the benefits of mouth guards, more specifically, athletes.
Specialty (Public Health) (Endodontics) (General Dentistry) (Orthodontics) (Pediatric Dentistry) (Prosthodontics) (Dental Hygiene)
Keywords
ID# 625
Date of submission 04/02/2010
E-mail shipleyw2@livemail.uthscsa.edu
Author William Shipley
Co-author(s)
Co-author(s) e-mail
Faculty mentor Elaine Neenan, DDS
Faculty mentor e-mail neenan@uthscsa.edu
   
Basic Science Rationale
(Mechanisms that may account for and/or explain the clinical question, i.e. is the answer to the clinical question consistent with basic biological, physical and/or behavioral science principles, laws and research?)
None available
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Comments and Evidence-Based Updates on the CAT
(FOR PRACTICING DENTISTS', FACULTY, RESIDENTS and/or STUDENTS COMMENTS ON PUBLISHED CATs)
by Ryan Sheridan (San Antonio, TX) on 07/14/2011
Recent Meta-Analysis and Systematic review of i) the history of mouth guard use in sports; (ii) mouth guard material and construction; and (iii) the effectiveness of mouth guards in preventing orofacial injuries and concussions shows evidence for the use of mouth guards. This was published in 2007 with the following reference Sports Med. 2007;37(2):117-44.PMID 17241103