Predictors of Dental Caries Progression in Primary Teeth

Abstract

The current evidence on the role of the social, behavioral, and community determinants of dental caries is based on cross-sectional analyses. The available evidence has not been based on analysis of multiple determinants within the same population. This longitudinal study addresses both of these limitations. The study included data from 788 dyads of children and their caregivers (77% follow-up), who were examined in 2002–03 and 2004–05. The families were assessed by calibrated dentists for severity of caries at both time periods. Additionally, the caregivers answered questionnaires administered by trained interviewers. The caries increment was adjusted for reversals. Significant predictors of higher caries increment were higher consumption of soda drinks, older age of child, greater weight-for-age, fewer dental treatment visits, higher baseline caries levels of children and their caregivers, dental fatalism, and neighborhood disadvantage status. The selected risk factors in the final model explained about 20% of the variation in the increment.

A Longitudinal Study of Early Childhood Caries and Associated Factors in Brazilian Children

“…In the present study, the presence of cavitated carious lesions at baseline was also significant for the increased An early childhood caries study rate of progression of caries lesions at two-year follow-up compared to children with initial lesions at baseline. Similar results were found in several studies, which also showed that the presence of caries lesions at baseline increased the caries increment after the follow-up period (1,(5)(6)(7)(8)11,24).…”

“…Thus, evaluating the oral health of preschool children is important because the experience of caries in primary teeth has been considered the strongest predictor of caries in permanent teeth and this was confirmed by several longitudinal studies conducted in different countries (1,(5)(6)(7)(8).…”

“…Other longitudinal studies have associated the increase of children's caries with socioeconomic factors, such as low maternal education (10) and neighborhood disadvantage (6).…”

“…The results showed that the presence of dental caries at baseline can be considered a caries increment predictor, both in deciduous and in permanent teeth (5,7,9,11) and that high levels of S. mutans at baseline were associated with higher incidence of carious lesions (9). In addition, only one study used diagnostic methods that consider non-cavitated lesions and their progression with time in preschool and the relationship of socioeconomic factors with the progression of dental caries in primary teeth (6).…”

Macronutrients and type 1 diabetes (revision number 6)

“…Seven cohort studies in eleven publications were identified that presented evidence on the relationship between sugars-containing beverage consumption and the incidence of dental caries in deciduous dentition in children, all of which adjusted their results for tooth brushing (Grytten et al, 1988;Grindefjord et al, 1995;Grindefjord et al, 1996;Tada et al, 1999;Levy et al, 2003;Mariri et al, 2003;Sakuma et al, 2007;Ismail et al, 2008;Warren et al, 2008;Lim et al, 2008;Ismail et al, 2009). Three cohorts were reported in more than one publication: (Grindefjord et al, 1995;Grindefjord et al, 1996) reported on one cohort; Lim et al, 2008;Ismail et al, 2009) reported on one cohort; and (Mariri et al, 2003;Levy et al, 2003) reported on one cohort. The data on measures of dietary exposure, caries incidence/prevalence and risk assessment methods were insufficiently comparable to enable a meta-analysis to be performed.…”