Basic Erosive Wear Examination (BEWE): a new scoring system for scientific and clinical needs

TLDR

The Basic Erosive Wear Examination (BEWE) is a new, simple scoring system for general practice that aims to increase clinician awareness of tooth erosion and guide its management while enabling comparison to more discriminative indices. BEWE records the most severely affected surface in each sextant with a four‑level score, aggregates these into a cumulative score matched to risk levels, and facilitates re‑analysis and integration of existing studies to promote consensus and reduce index proliferation. By enabling re‑analysis and integration of prior data, BEWE is expected to foster scientific consensus and ultimately lead to an internationally accepted, standardized, and validated index.

Abstract

A new scoring system, the Basic Erosive Wear Examination (BEWE), has been designed to provide a simple tool for use in general practice and to allow comparison to other more discriminative indices. The most severely affected surface in each sextant is recorded with a four level score and the cumulative score classified and matched to risk levels which guide the management of the condition. The BEWE allows re-analysis and integration of results from existing studies and, in time, should initiate a consensus within the scientific community and so avoid continued proliferation of indices. Finally, this process should lead to the development of an internationally accepted, standardised and validated index. The BEWE further aims to increase the awareness of tooth erosion amongst clinicians and general dental practitioners and to provide a guide as to its management.