[An odontological study on Down's syndrome. Part 3: Dental caries of the deciduous teeth]

The dental caries experience of a sample of 97 children with Down's syndrome who had deciduous dentition was contrasted with that of 57 non affected healthy children. The children with Down's syndrome had a caries experience less than one-third that of the control. However between the two groups, there was no difference in the relative caries pattern between occlusal, surficial and proximal tooth caries. We investigated the relationship between two factors, the delayed eruption pattern and any other environmental factors (tooth bursting, sugar control, nocturnal bottle feeding and caries activity) and the low dental caries experience in children with Down's syndrome. For the eruption factor of the deciduous teeth, we calculated the post eruptive age and excepted the delayed eruption pattern of children with Down's syndrome. It was apparent that two factors did not influence the low dental caries experience of the deciduous teeth in children with Down's syndrome.