Prevalence of root caries in a Japanese adult population aged 20-59 years

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of root caries in an adult population in Japan. A total of 770 company employees aged 20-59 were examined in 1990. The subjects were all dentate and had 27.2 present teeth on the average. The proportion of gingival recession in this population ranged from 20.1% for the 20-29 year old group to 75.2% for the 50-59 year old group, with an average of 44.0%. In the present study, 3.2% of the subjects showed one or more active root caries. The prevalence of active root caries ranged from 0.4% at age 20-29 to 7.1% at age 50-59. The proportion of persons with active root caries and/or root fillings ranged from 1.3% at age 20-29 to 36.3% at age 50-59. The percentage of subjects with active and/or inactive caries and/or root fillings varied from 3.1% at age 20-29 to 43.4% at age 50-59. The prevalence of active root caries in the subjects at risk (with gingival recession) was 7.4% on the average and ranged from 2.2% at age 20-29 to 9.4% at age 50-59. The percentage of persons with active root caries and/or root fillings in the subjects at risk ranged from 6.7% at age 20-29 to 48.2% at age 50-59. The mean number of teeth with active root lesions was 0.09 per person, and the mean number of teeth with root fillings was 1.25 at age 50-59.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)