Caries experience among children and adolescents from a longitudinal Swedish national registry study over a 10-year period

To identify caries experience in two groups of children and adolescents using longitudinal data from the Swedish Quality Registry for Caries and Periodontal Diseases (SKaPa).

Data from two groups (10- and 20-year-olds), 165,365 individuals, were observed retrospectively for 10 years. Using a three-trajectory caries model (3-TCM), individuals were assigned according to their caries development as: high (15%), moderate (45%), or low (40%). Caries experience was expressed using the decayed and filled surfaces (DFS) and dfs indices. The specific affected caries (SaC) index and a point prevalence measurement at age 6 years (PP-6) were also analyzed.

Over the observation period, significant differences were discovered between all three trajectories within the oldest group (20-year-olds). The mean DFS increase was significantly elevated for the high trajectory compared with the lower trajectories, 7.9 ± 10.2, 3.3 ± 2.9 and 0.2 ± 0.5 for the three trajectories respectively. In the youngest group (10-year-olds), the high trajectory combined with the SaC and PP-6 provided further information of those with the highest caries experience.

The 3-TCM identified individuals with high caries experience in the permanent dentition; but to properly elucidate caries experience in the primary and mixed dentitions, a combination with other indices was needed.