PREDICTION OF DENTAL-CARIES DEVELOPMENT IN 1-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN

Dietary habits, oral hygiene, fluoride exposure and occurrence of muta ns streptococci were studied in 1-year-old children (n = 786) as well as the socio-economic and immigrant background of their parents. The p urpose was to evaluate the predictive ability of variables studied in 1-year-old children that could be used to identify children at risk fo r early caries development. In a multivariate logistic regression anal ysis, the variables significantly associated with caries at 3.5 years of age were: immigrant background (p < 0.001), mother's education (p < 0.001), consumption of sugar-containing beverages (p < 0.001), mutans streptococci (p < 0.05) and candy (p < 0.05). The probability of cari es development was 87% when all the variables associated with caries w ere present at 1 year of age. The relative risk (odds ratio) of those children to develop manifest caries at 3.5 years of age was estimated to be 32 times higher than in the children where corresponding risk fa ctors were not present. The results indicate that prediction at 1 year of age, built on risk factors associated with dental caries, can prov ide an indication of possible preventive interventions.