Salivary lactobacillus counts as a diagnostic and didactic tool in caries prevention

The usefulness of salivary lactobacillus counts in regular dental care was investigated in 236 13 1/2-yr-old Swedish children for 2 1/2 yr. The average individual preventive care was at least as extensive as the restorative care and the dental health of these children must be considered good with a mean DFS-value of 6.8 at baseline. Nevertheless, it proved possible to reduce caries increment by more than 50%, simply by replacing one NaF-rinsing in school once every 6 months by a saliva sampling session together with subsequent presentation and information of an inoculated and incubated Dentocult dip-slide. The way of determining salivary lactobacillus counts in schoolchildren, as performed in this study, could easily be adopted as a routine part of general care. It proved to be useful for early diagnosis of caries and motivation to home care, and as a supplement to clinical examination it would be a valuable aid in the early selection of high-risk cases as well as identification of low-risk cases, who do not require extensive prevention.