[Diagnosis of caries risk within the scope of group prevention]

Dental epidemiological research in Germany has recently shown that the major part of caries affected teeth is only found in a small part of the population. This finding mainly refers to children and adolescents. Three quarters of all carious teeth for instance are found in one third of children aged 8 to 9 years. This fact requires intensified preventive proceedings for children with an apparently increased caries risk. Caries preventive steps, however, can only be effective if the identification of children with increased risk takes place before the first carious damage has occurred. Actually, there is no method to solve this problem in an optimal way. Under this restriction the Dentoprog-method which has been developed at the University of Zurich is considered the best solution for school--based steps in caries prevention.