Abstract
The purpose of this study was to identify the factors which affected the onset and the accumulation of primary and secondary caries in adults undergoing regular preventive program, and to identify those patients with high or lowrisk of caries by using Classification and Regression Trees (CART). A clinical data set of 732 patients aged between 20 to 64 in nine general practices was analyzed using the following parameters: age, DMFT, levels of mutans streptococci (SM) and lactobacilli (LB), the saliva flow rate and buffer capacity, compliance to a preventive program. CART analysis identified patients at high risk for primary caries with an odds ratio of 3.08 according to SM levels and compliance; and those for secondary caries with an odds ratio of 3.69 according to LB and SM levels. Poisson regression analyses showed that accumulation of primary caries was affected by compliance, SM and LB. And that of secondary caries was affected by DMFT, SM and LB.
Conclusions are that cariogenic bacteria were important factors for both the onset and accumulation of primary and secondary caries, and that participation in a regular preventive program limits the onset and the accumulation of primary caries in adults.
