Synopsis:
Comprehensive dental care of a medically compromised child requires consideration of their underlying systemic condition and coordination of their dental treatment with their medical consultant. Although dental problems are common in this group, their oral health is frequently overlooked by the medical profession. The term used to identify this particular group, ‘medically compromised children’, has been replaced recently by the more general term ‘children with special needs’. However, the older term is still relevant because it reminds the dentist that these children often have medical conditions that can affect dental treatment or that they can present with specific oral manifestations of a systemic disease. This presentation will discuss the common paediatric medical conditions that require consideration in the provision of optimal dental treatment. The prevention of oral diseases is important in children with chronic medical problems as oral complications can severely compromise a child’s medical management and overall prognosis.

Speaker:
Dr. Marcio da Fonseca received his dental degree at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil, in 1987. He went on to the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, for his Master of Science degree and certificate in Pediatric Dentistry, followed by a fellowship at the Denver Children’s Hospital. In 1994-95, he did an Oral Medicine fellowship at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle working exclusively with hematopoietic stem cell transplant children.  He was a clinical assistant professor and director of undergraduate pediatric dentistry at the University of California, San Francisco (1995-97). At the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1997 to 2005), he was director of the pediatric dental service at the University Medical Center. He was director of inpatient dental care at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a clinical professor at the Ohio State University College of Dentistry (2005-2010). In 2005, he participated in the first class of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry’s Leadership Institute at the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University). He is currently Law-Lewis Professor and director of the pediatric dental graduate program at the University of Washington Center for Pediatric Dentistry and Seattle Children’s Hospital.