The change of DMFT counts in Slovenia

The longitudinal study was designed to assess the change in caries prevalen ce and DMFT counts in the adult population of Ljubljana, Slovenia, over a 1 0-year period. All data in the present study are derived from two surveys c onducted in 1983-1987 and 1993-1997. In the first survey, 1,609 dentate sub jects in the range from 15 to 65 years were examined, Ten years later, 555 (34.5%) of these subjects participated in the second oral survey, In the 53 8 dentate 25- to 75-year-old subjects examined in the second survey, a decl ine in the mean number of decayed teeth (1.1 vs. 0.5) was found, and an inc rease in DMFT counts (15.9 vs, 19.1) due to a higher number of missing (5.2 vs. 7.5) and filled teeth (9.7 vs. 11.1) was observed. However, a comparis on with the previous generation of the same age showed a decline in the ave rage number of decayed and missing teeth in all age groups and an increase in the mean number of filled teeth in all age groups as well. The populatio n of Ljubljana from the 1993-1997 survey had retained in most of the age gr oups about 2 teeth more than had the generation 10 years before. Copyright (C) 2001 S. Karger AG. Basel.