Impactos da anquiloglossia na qualidade de vida dos bebês: do diagnóstico ao tratamento

Abstract

Baby Dentistry brought relevance to pediatric dental care for children in their first months of life, prior to the appearance of their first dental elements, providing a prior diagnosis of possible oral manifestations such as ankyloglossia. In this sense, different protocols were developed for the diagnostic definition of ankyloglossia, such as, for example, the test known in Brazil as the “linguinha test”, among others. Concomitant to the elucidation of this diagnosis, the literature has still been scarce regarding the consensus of surgical determination as a treatment for ankyloglossia. Given this context, this study aims to describe the impacts of ankyloglossia on the quality of life of babies, considering the diagnostic protocols and surgical treatment of this clinical condition, through a literature review of the narrative type. This is a narrative-type literature review.Scientific articles were searched in Scielo, Pubmed, Lilacs and Academic Google databases, also considering the data relevant and available in other types of publications such as books and gray literature. To assess this lingual condition, the Assessment Tool for Lingual Frenulum Function (ATLFF) was initially proposed, conceived by Hazelbaker in 1993; subsequently, another protocol was developed, the Bristol Tongue Assessment Tool (BTAT); and in 2012, Martinelli et al developed a new protocol. In order to determine the surgical treatment, one must pay attention to the presence of other clinical conditions that may be confounding the diagnosis. To perform surgery, the team responsible for evaluating breastfeeding and using the lingual frenulum screening protocol must be qualified. Surgical overtreatment should be avoided, so that babies do not receive unnecessary surgeries. Furthermore, the surgical prognosis of frenotomy is considered favorable with regard to improvements both for the mother and for the babies in breastfeeding, even if in the short term and with weak to moderate scientific evidence, mainly due to the methodological parameters of the studies carried out.