Vetnews | Mei 2025 40 « BACK TO CONTENTS We are often asked about abnormalities of the deciduous teeth in dogs and cats and when to intervene. This month we decided to unpack the various aspects of paediatric dentistry and what you should look out for in young dogs and cats. Paediatric dentistry in humans deals with the oral care and dental disease of patients from birth through adolescence. Paediatric dentists will usually stop caring for children’s teeth and oral health at about the time their last molar teeth either come to occlusion or are extracted. If we use the same analogy in dogs and cats this will be when the last molar teeth have erupted somewhere between 6- and 8-months-old. It is important to always assess an animal’s dental and oral health whenever you do a clinical examination. The deciduous dental formula for a dog is i3/3 c1/1 PM3/3 = 28 and for a cat i3/3 c1/1 pm3/2 = 26. A selection of conditions that may appear at this time will follow: Cleft palates Cleft palates are present at birth in most cases and can be primary (cleft lip – restricted to the nose, lip and incisive bone only (Fig. 1A), secondary (hard and soft palate affected (Fig. 1B) or primary and secondary (Fig. 1 C). We also see secondary clefts affecting only the soft palate, either unilaterally (Fig. 2A) or bilateral (Fig. 2B). Feeding in these patients may be minimally (primary cleft palate) or severely affected (secondary cleft palate). With good nursing care, many of these patients can survive until 12 weeks old when we usually repair the defects. Aspiration pneumonia and chronic rhinitis remain the most common complications seen in these patients. Cleft palates can be divided into primary clefts affecting the lip and incisive bone (A), secondary clefts affecting the palatal bone and soft palate (B) or a combination of the two (C). Regulars I Dental Column Paediatric dentistry in veterinary practice Part 1 Gerhard Steenkamp and Mareli van de Wetering Figure 1 A Figure 1 B Figure 1 C Figure 2 A Figure 2 B
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