Diagnosing Tooth Erosion
How to diagnose tooth erosion
Although the rate of progression for erosive tooth wear is slow, it can impact upon quality of life in later years. Dental Professionals have a duty of care to record signs of the condition in the clinical notes and inform the patient. The Basic Erosive Wear Examination or BEWE is a simple screening tool to use alongside the BPE to help alert the professional and the patient to erosive tooth wear. Explore the tools that can help you identify erosive tooth wear.
Early diagnosis of tooth erosion is important to prevent further, lasting damage1
Common features of enamel wear2,3
These include:
- Yellowing (advanced sign)
- Thinning and translucency
- Surface changes (smoothing)
- Loss of structural features (rounding)
Other signs of tooth erosion2,3
These include:
- Palatal erosive tooth wear
- Occlusal cupping
The Basic Erosive Wear Examination (BEWE)
The BEWE is a quick, effective, validated tool for assessing enamel wear.4 It is recommended in the latest UK Department of Health oral healthcare guidelines,4,5 and was a key tool in the ESCARCEL study; the first pan-European epidemiology study on non-carious cervical lesions (NCCL) and associated risk factors, and the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind.
Find out more about this GSK-supported study here.
Professor David Bartlett discusses the BEWE tool
Learn how to use the BEWE tool in practice from Professor David Bartlett at King’s College London Dental Institute.
The BEWE in practice
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Step 1 – Talk to your patient
How to diagnose tooth erosion
Your patient’s diet or dietary habits may increase their risk of erosive tooth wear.3,6 Ask them the following questions to help determine their risk:
- How many times do you consume acidic foods or drinks in a day?
- Do you have a history of gastric reflux?
- Do you swish or hold acidic drinks in your mouth?
- Do you frequently take liquid medication (which may be acidic)?
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Step 2 – Assign BEWE scores
BEWE scores describe how severly each sextant of your patient’s dentition is affected by enamel wear. Each sextant should be assigned a score of 0 to 3:
0. No erosive wear 1. Initial loss of enamel surface texture 2. Distinct defect, hard issue loss extending over less than 50%* of the surface area 3. Hard tissue loss extending over 50%* or more of the surface area
Once assigned, the scores from each sextant can be used to calculate a cumulative BEWE score.
*In scores 2 and 3, dentine is often involved
Sensodyne Pronamel – helping protect your patients against enamel wear
Impact on patient quality of life
Find out about the impact enamel wear has on patients’ daily lives.
The Sensodyne Pronamel range
Find out how the Sensodyne Pronamel range can help your patients.
