Researchers at the University of North Carolina have found that custom-fitted mouth-guards can protect against dental injuries in athletes who play men’s college basketball.
In the January issue of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, a publication of the American College of Sports Medicine, researchers reported findings from a prospective study of 50 men’s Division I college basketball teams during the 1999–2000 season.
Each week, the teams’ athletic trainers reported data on the players’ dental injuries and concussions. Researchers compiled the data and then compared the injury and concussion rates of players who wore custom-fitted mouthguards with those who did not.
They found no significant differences in the rates of concussions and oral soft-issue injuries among mouthguard users and nonusers. They did, however, find that mouthguard users had significantly lower rates of dental injuries and referrals to dentists than did nonusers.
"Dental injuries can be permanent and disfiguring," said lead author Cynthia R. LaBella, M.D. "They also are universally expensive to treat."
The research team of Dr. LaBella, Bryan W. Smith, M.D., and Dr. Asgeir Sigurdsson estimated that the minimum initial cost per dentist referral for treatment of a serious dental injury was $1,000. "There is no question that this is substantially more expensive than the cost of providing an entire team with custom-fitted mouth-guards, for which the direct cost in materials is less than $20 per player," they wrote.
They concluded that their study provides a strong rationale for health care providers to recommend mouthguard use in college basketball players, as the devices can reduce significantly the morbidity and expense resulting from dental injuries.
