[Prevention of dental caries in Thailand: 3 fluoridated products submitted for comparative tests]

The aim of a three-year field trial was to compare the relative effectiveness of a 0.2% fluoride rinse used fortnightly, fluoride chewing-gum sweetened with sucrose and fluoride chewing-gum sweetened with a mixture of xylitol and sorbitol (4 sticks of gum chewed per day for 5 days a week during the school year). Indications from the data are that the chewing-gum/sucrose regime was at best considerably less effective than the other two regimes. The study shows that the effectiveness of the chewing-gum/xylitol-sorbitol and the fluoride rinse regimes was comparable.