THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RESTORATIVE TREATMENT PROVIDED AND A ONE-YEAR INCREMENT OF THE F-COMPONENT IN THE DMF INDEX

There is considerable debate over the estimate of true increment of ca ries in an adult population derived from a conventional epidemiologica l study. The purpose of this investigation was to compare the incremen t of restorative treatment provided by dentists for caries with an est imate of what would have been recorded in a conventional epidemiologic al study as FT(S). The two types of increment were calculated from dat a collected for 3,920 regularly attending adults over the age of 25 ye ars receiving dental treatment from 24 general dental practitioners. T he adults were treated by their dentists prior to baseline so that, in the dentists' opinions, there were no caries lesions requiring restor ation. All treatment carried out over the next 12 months together with the reasons for this, were recorded by the dentists. The increments f or all restorative treatments and those considered by the dentist to b e related to caries were calculated and compared with the conventional epidemiological FT and FS increments, calculated as changes from soun d at baseline to restored for both teeth and surfaces. The results sho wed that the epidemiological FT and FS increments under-estimated both the total restorative treatment and that provided for caries by the d entists.