Fall 2010 - University of Rochester Medical Center

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Community Dentistry
disease. He also wanted to determine if this
population has a dental home.
Gajendra is leading the effort for this
program, and to date has screened 80 of the
200 children she plans to see.
“Data developed by Dr. Gajendra have
proven very useful in gauging dental health
in our community,” said Doniger. “Her
recent work on dental health issues of
children in foster care will be invaluable.”
Dorota Kopycka-Kedzierawski, DDS
Lenora Colaruotolo, LMSW
3
Teledentistry
One of the specific goals of this fiveyear
National Institute of Dental and
Craniofacial Research grant awarded in
summer 2007 is to assess caries prevalence
in pre-school children enrolled in inner-city
childcare centers.
Leading the effort is Dorota Kopycka-
Kedzierawski, DDS, MPH, principal
investigator, who grew up in Poland in a
family of chemical and electrical engineers.
She completed the AEGD and Master of
Public Health programs at the University of
Rochester in 2003 and has since worked in
the Division of Community Dentistry and
Oral Disease Prevention. She has an interest
in preventing oral disease and improving of
the oral status in the youngest patients.
She is a principal investigator of an
NIH/NIDCR K23 training grant, provides
patient care, contributes to the graduate
courses at EIOH and supervises residents’
research projects. Her research project is
conducted in the collaboration with the
Department of Pediatrics Health-e-Access
program led by Ken McConnochie, MD.
Baseline caries prevalence was
determined in a cohort of children
12-60 months of age. Eligible children
were randomized into two groups: The
first group received a traditional visual/
tactile oral examination and the second
group received a teledentistry examination.
Each child was examined for the presence
or absence of dental caries in the primary
dentition, as measured by the dfs index,
(decayed, filled primary surfaces in the
primary dentition). Currently, both groups
of children are being re-examined at 6
months and 12 months after initial exam.
To date, 211 children have been
examined, with approximately 29% of
the children having active caries. These
results are consistent with the caries
prevalence in U.S. preschool children,
which reported 28% of children ages 2 to 5
were caries active.
“Only a small proportion of the children
with caries showed evidence of having
been treated for caries,” said Kopycka-
Kedzierawski. “Referrals for preventive
or restorative care were provided for all
children participating in the study. The data,
thus far, indicates that continued efforts to
reduce or eliminate barriers and to improve
oral health care utilization by inner-city
preschool children are needed.”
The broad long-term objective of the
project, which has received international
media attention, is to explore the full range
of Teledentistry to reduce dental caries
burden in Rochester preschool children
and to enhance dental care utilization by
preschool children and especially Hispanic
and African-American children in whom
caries levels are the highest.
“We are optimistic that Teledentistry
will greatly enhance our ability to identify
children with dental caries or who are at
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