대도시지역 일부 초등학생의 치과용 아말감 충전치아와 요중 수은 농도의 관련성

Dental amalgam is an alloy composed of a mixture of approximately equal parts of elemental liquid mercury and an alloy powder. Amalgam has been the most popular and effective restorative material used in dentistry. Despite the long history and popularity of dental amalgam as a restorative material, there have been periodic concerns regarding the potential adverse health effects arising from exposure to mercury in amalgam. Since children are more at risk for mercury toxicity, we aimed to assess the association between dental amalgam filling and urinary mercury concentration in children. 581 of elementary school children in grades 1st4th were conveniently recruited from two schools located in Daegu city, Korea. To obtain dental caries experience states, oral examination were conducted using the full term for DFS index, number of amalgam filling surfaces and the type of filling materials. A questionnaire was used to collect information about general characteristics and the frequencies of tooth brushing, gum chewing and fish/seafood consumption. The statistical analysis was done using the SPSS 18.0 program. The mean urinary mercury concentration in children having more surfaces was highest. As a results Urinary mercury concentration of children who have 79 teeth of amalgam filling and more than 10 is higher than without amalgam filling. The number of amalgam filling surface is closely related with urinary mercury concentration.