Objectives: The aim of this study was to develop an instrument for quality management in dental offices based on the Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP-0) using nomograms to compare age-specific number of teeth. Methods: Dental status derived from patients' files of 6 dental offices was transformed into dental office-profiles using number of teeth. Patients from the offices were randomly drawn by age (20-74 years) and gender within a period of two years. The offices' data were compared to a SHIP-derived nomogram of number of teeth by age groups. Results: The data of 1300 patients from the offices and 3990 participants from SHIP were compared by age using the U-Test. The level of significance was adjusted (according to Bonferroni) to 0.05/11=0.0045 because of testing 11 age groups. In 6x11 possible cases (6 offices, 11 age groups) were significant differences according to the number of teeth in various age groups: 25-29 years in 3 offices (p<=0.003), 30-34 years in 4 offices (p<=0.0042), 35-39 years in 6 offices (p<=0.003), 40-44 years in 6 offices (p<=0.003), 45-49 years in 3 offices (p=0.001), 50-54 years in 4 offices (p<=0.003), 55-59 years in 5 offices (p<=0.003), 60-64 years in 5 offices (p<=0.001), 65-69 years in 6 offices (p<0.001) and 70-74 years in 4 offices (p<=0.003). Conclusions: This study confirms the value of nomograms to compare number of teeth between patients of a dental office and a population-based-study as a tool of quality-management. In further studies the socio-economic status of patients in each office and the respective risk-factor-profile will be considered in order to assure the validity of any comparison. An improvement of the analysis might be achieved by an adjustment of SHIP-nomograms to conditions in former West-Germany.

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