Abstract
This study was conducted to investigate the relationship of the Cariostat test and salivary buffer test to caries status in 344 junior high school students. The effectiveness of combination both tests was also investigated.
The following results were obtained;
1. The caries prevalence and mean DF-tooth of the subjects were 91.0%,5.02, respectively.
2. The Cariostat test and salivary buffer test showed a highly significant correlation with the DF-tooth (p<0.001).
3. The Cariostat test score did not correlate to the salivary buffer test.
4. When the Cariostat score was divided into three groups (low risk / middle risk / high risk), the mean DF-tooth showed a significant difference among the three groups (ANOVA p<0.001).
5. When the salivary buffer score was divided into three groups (low risk / middle risk / high risk), the mean DF-tooth showed a significant difference among the three groups (ANOVA p<0.001).
6. When the Cariostat score and the Salivary buffer score were combined, the low-low risk group showed the lowest mean DF-tooth. On the other hand, the high-high risk group showed a highest mean DF-tooth.
From these results, it is suggested that the Cariostat test and the salivary buffer test is useful for clinical application. Futhermore, when the Cariostat test and the salivary buffer test were combined, a higher correlation was shown with the carious status of junior high school students.
