Abstract
It is known that oral health of 6 to 20 year-old children and addolescents has a considerable impact on lifetime overall health; however, a clinical report on long-term caries-preventive treatment in the Japanese setting is not available. Sugiyama Dental Clinic updated its clinical policies on dental caries and periodontal disease to prevention oriented and has since maintained the database of clinical records. The present study was conducted to analyze the relevance of caries-preventive treatment frequency to an increase of DMF teeth during the period between 6 and 20 years old, using the said database. Patients were divided into 3 groups: Group A—those who received caries-preventive care 1-12 times between 6 to 20 years old; Group B—13 - 24 times; Group C—25 times or more. DMF teeth increased in Group A by 4.9（±4.50）, in Group B by 2.3 （±2.98）, and in Group C by 2.0 （±2.28）. As such, the increase of DMF teeth was smaller in Group B （P-value=0.048） and C （P-value=0.026） in comparison to Group A. For the same subjects, increase of DMF teeth was assessed, based on whether there was an interruption in caries-preventive treatment （i.e. interval of 1 year or longer）. As a result, a greater increase in DMF teeth was found in Group I—with interruption （3.3± 3.49） compared to Group WI—without interruption （1.9±3.15）. These results suggested that caries-preventive treatment may be relevant to controlling or lowering the increase of DMF teeth on average and also caries-preventive care with appropriate interval may be effective in lowering the increase of DMF teeth to 2 on average during 6 to 20 year-old period.
