The Canadian Dental Association recommends routinely scheduled reexamination and preventive care as an essential component of maintaining optimal oral health. There is a significant and growing body of evidence demonstrating the relationship between oral health and general health. Dentists are the only professionals trained to provide comprehensive oral health care through diagnosis, treatment and management of a wide range of oral health conditions.
The CDA recommends that:
Patients consult their dentist about how frequently they need to be seen for reexaminiation to ensure they maintain optimal oral health. The time between reexamination and continuing care may change throughout life and your dentist will determine what schedule meets your individual needs.
Continuing care frequencies (including recall examinations) should be determined based on a risk assessment with respect to total oral health including, but not limited to, dental caries risk, periodontal health, cancer screening, growth and developing, soft and hard tissue evaluation and medical status of the individual patient
Dentists should undertake risk assessments of their patient’s likelihood of developing a dental disease and, based on the findings, recommend more frequent visits to those found to be higher risk and less frequent for those of lower risk.
CDA Board of Directors
Approved: June 2005
Revised: February 2019
