Objectives: -

1) To estimate the prevalence of NCCL in adults visiting a dental hospital in Navi Mumbai

2) To assess the role of dietary and oral hygiene habits in the development of NCCL in the study population

4) To assess the role of salivary characteristics in development of NCCL in the study population

5) To assess the role of abnormal occlusal forces in the development of NCCL in the study population

500 participants as per the following inclusion and exclusion criteria will be selected. For the purpose of the study, a special questionnaire was developed, similar to those used in previously conducted epidemiological studies. Either one of the two examiners will conduct the clinical examination. Examination process will be carried out in the dental chair with adequate lighting and the help of a mirror and Williams graduated probe for all the patients. Loupes with magnification of 3.2X (Admetec, Israel) will be used for clinical examination. Intra- and inter-examiner reliability will be checked with Cohen’s Kappa coefficient. Any food debris obscuring vision will be cleaned before assessment. Any non-carious loss of hard tissues at the cervix of the tooth, such as wedge-shaped, disc-shaped, flattened and irregular defects, will be identified through visual or tactile examination. For smaller lesions, differentiation will be based on comparison between the morphology of the same area observed on adjacent and contralateral teeth. Teeth with NCCLs will be graded according to Smith and Knight’s index. Lesions will be characterized according to their shape as rounded or concave, wedge shaped, and mixed. For assessing the flow rate of saliva, samples will be analyzed for a total of 58 patients. Samples will be taken from 29 patients of both genders,40,41 who will have been diagnosed with multiple NCCLs (>3) and 29 patients of both genders without any signs of cervical lesions and cervical restorations, who will represent the control group. One day before collecting samples, patients will be instructed not to eat, drink, smoke and brush their teeth for at least 60 minutes before arrival. The quantity of saliva will be investigated by measuring the flow rate of unstimulated and stimulated saliva. Qualitative analysis will be done by checking the saliva acidity coefficient (pH) of stimulated and unstimulated saliva by a pH meter in two groups of 29 patients each. The saliva buffering capacity of the saliva samples will be assessed by actively mixing 1 ml of saliva to 3 ml of 0.005% hydrochloric acid. The data obtained from the questionnaire and intraoral examinations will be subjected to descriptive analysis, bivariate analysis through Chi-square test, bivariate and multivariate regression models.