Factors associated with caries incidence in an elderly population

Area of Science:

• Geriatric Dentistry
• Dental Public Health
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Dental caries remains a significant issue for older adults.
• Identifying predictive factors for caries development in this demographic is crucial for targeted prevention.
• Previous studies have focused on traditional risk factors, with less emphasis on ethnicity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify baseline factors predicting future coronal and root caries incidence in adults aged 60 and above.
• To evaluate the association between demographic, microbial, and clinical factors and caries development over a 3-year period.
• To explore the role of ethnicity as a predictor for dental caries in older populations.

Main Methods:

• Longitudinal study design over 3 years.
• Poisson regression analysis to assess risk factors for caries incidence.
• Inclusion of baseline decayed, missing, or filled surfaces (DMFS), bacterial counts (mutans streptococci, lactobacilli), gender, and ethnicity.

Main Results:

• High baseline root DMFS, elevated mutans streptococci and lactobacilli counts, male gender, and Asian ethnicity were significant predictors of coronal caries.
• High bacterial counts and Asian ethnicity predicted root surface caries.
• Predictive models showed low accuracy, potentially due to a high caries incidence rate in the study population.

Conclusions:

• Baseline DMFS and salivary bacterial counts remain valuable predictors of caries incidence in older adults.
• Asian ethnicity emerged as a significant, previously underappreciated factor in predicting caries development in this age group.
• Further research is needed to refine predictive models for caries in diverse, high-risk older adult populations.