Abstract
Twenty five children participated in a dental survey to research the effective flossing interval for prevention of dental caries on proximal surfaces. Their ages ranged from 4.6 to 14.8 years. The samples were composed of the 77 interproximal sites where no caries lesion were detected by bite-wing radiography.
At first, dental plaque was collected as the baseline sample with use of a dental floss from each interproximal site, and then each interproximal site was cleaned with flossing. At intervals of 1 day,3 days,1 week or 2 weeks, each child visited our clinic again for collection of plaque samples from the same interproximal site, and then each proximal surface was cleaned with flossing. Each child visited repeatedly at each different intervals for the same purpose. The plaque sample was immediately put into a Cariostat tube (Sankin Industry Co. Ltd. ), and a Cariostat-value after a 24 hour incubation was scored. The mean Cariostat-values of the same interproximal site were compared among each group of each interval and interproximal site for flossing.
The results were as follows;
1) The differences among the groups of 1 day-interval,3 day-interval and 1 weekinterval visits were not significant. In comparing the Cariostat-values between the 1 week-interval group and 2 week-interval group, the former was smaller than the latter. The difference between the baseline and the 2 week-interval group was statistically significant (P<.05), and between the 2 week-interval and 1 week-interval group it was also statistically significant (P<.05).
2) For carious activity of the dental plaque on the proximal surface, the mean Cariostat-value of the 1 week-interval group was smaller than that of the baseline, resulting in less than 1.0. The order of the mean Carioatat-value of each interproximal site was D-E<E-6<1-2<5-6.
3) Less than 1.5 of the Carisotat-value of the baseline could decrease under 1.0 one week after flossing, suggesting that the flossing interval within 1 week might be adequate for such cases. On the other hand, more than 2.0 of the Cariostatvalue of the baseline could not decrease below 1.0, suggesting that the flossing interval within 1 week might not be enough for such cases.
