Abstract
The purpose of this study was to devise a method to screen infants and preschool children for teeth predisposed to caries using Cariostat^<[○!R]>, a commercially available test for susceptibility to caries. The subjects were 80 infants and preschool children of both sexes residing in Minoo City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, who were annually checked on their first and four successive birthdays for their subclinical and clinically evident dental caries at Minoo Dental Healh Center from 1989 onward. The following are the findings. 1. The prevalence rate of clinically evident dental caries and the dmft index at 5 years of age were 30.0 % and 1.25, respectively. 2. Both the number of children having any tooth requiring close periodic observation (children with CO teeth) and the average number of such teeth peaked at 4 years of age. 3. A full 2-year comparative follow-up of 2-year-olds having CO teeth against those without CO teeth or decayed teeth revealed that the former had a higher caries prevalence rate at 5 years of age. 4. Observations in terms of Cariostat^<[○!R]> revealed that caries-free 2-year-olds, who showed increased Cariostat^<[○!R]> values at 3 years of age, showed dmft indexes larger than in any other Cariostat^<[○!R]> value group. These children were found to have a caries prevalence rate of 73.3 % when were 5 years of age. In conclusion, we propose that the presence of pre-caries teeth at the age of 3 and the age-de-pendent transition of Cariostat^<[○!R]> value in a period from 2 to 3 years of age might be used as a predictor of caries appearing at 5 years of age.
