Abstract :
To estimate the prevalence of dental and skeletal fluorosis in relation with different fluoride levels in drinking water among school going children aged 6-12 years. The cross sectional study was conducted in the six primary schools of Lakshmisagar Grampanchayat, Bankura District, West Bengal, India. Dental fluorosis was recorded using Dean's index. The drinking water samples were collected in polyethylene bottles and the fluoride content of these samples was determined by fluoride ion selective electrode method using Orion microprocessor analyser. The overall prevalence of dental and skeletal fluorosis among the school students of this study area was 78.47% and 13.87% respectively. The study noted that the maximum fluoride level in the drinking water of the six schools were 9.15, 3.46, 3.46, 3.46, 3.28, and 2.11 ppm respectively though the prevalence of dental fluorosis was noted among the students of this region were 100.00%, 76.92%, 78.85%, 42.86%, 91.30% and 94.74% respectively. This study found that the fluorosis level in drinking water was not the single most factors for determining the fluorosis but there might be some other factors associated with causation of fluorosis and these factors also modulate the severity of the fluorosis. Nutrition is the most important factors to reduce the fluoride level from the human body.
Keyword :
Fluorosis, Fluoride, Bankura district, Prevalence.