Necesidad de prótesis en pacientes mayores de 15 a？os

background: dental prosthesis is the science and the art of replacing the coronal portions of the lost natural teeth and its associate parts. objective: to determine the prosthesis′ necessity of patients older than fifteen years of the sector one and two that were assisted in las margaritas clinic, falcon state, venezuela. method: an observational descriptive, longitudinal and retrospective study to determine the prosthesis′necessity of these patients was performed from september 2004 to september 2008. the universe was constituted by one-thousand nine hundred four patients and the sample was conformed of six hundred patients that fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria. results: the age group most affected was the one of fifteen to thirty-four years, the predominant sex was the masculine one. the most neediest type of prosthesis was mainly the partial one with 83,7% in the lower arcade. bigger incidence on the class iii of kennedy exists. the class iv turned out to be the fewer represented with just sixteen patients in the upper arcade. conclusions: the feminine sex was the neediest and the age group with more affectation was the one of fifteen to thirty-four years. the upper arcade was the most involved and the partial prosthesis the neediest for arcade. in both sex are needed a bigger number of partial prosthesis. the class iii of kennedy was the most prevailed in both dental arcades.