Eficiencia masticatoria de acuerdo a pares oclusales y clases de Kennedy en pacientes edéntulos parciales, Clínica Odontológica UCSG B-2023.

Abstract

Introduction: Masticatory Efficiency (ME) objectively evaluates the number of chewing strokes required to achieve a typical level of pulverization of a certain food. The Kennedy Class and the number of occlusal pairs (antagonists) would reveal an accurate measurement of masticatory efficiency. The importance of this study is to know how optimal ME is in patients who have lost teeth, before the placement of rehabilitative treatment. Objective: Determine the Masticatory Efficiency according to the occlusal pairs and Kennedy Classes of the partially edentulous patients of the UCSG-2023 Dental Clinic. Materials and Methods: Descriptive non-experimental cross-sectional study, with a quantitative approach where the population was made up of 60 patients, who performed 15 chewing strokes with 2 sheets of chewing gum of different colors. These samples were scanned and analyzed under the Perceptodent program and through Pearson correlation. Results: Kennedy Class III resulted in a ME of 75%, Class I with 40%, followed by Class IV with a 35% of Masticatory Efficiency. The correlation between Age and Masticatory Efficiency using Pearson resulted in - 0.674, and the correlation of the number of Occlusal Pairs with Masticatory Efficiency was 0.955. Conclusion: It was established that Masticatory Efficiency increases with a greater number of occlusal Pairs, and it was also determined that Kennedy Class III was the one with the highest masticatory efficiency and class IV the lowest. Just as it was concluded that with older age, masticatory efficiency decreases.