Trend of dental caries in children of Chandigarh over the last sixteen years

Abstract

The trend of dental caries in Chandigarh school children over a sixteen year period, studied by almost the same authors and using the same recording criteria of WHO reveals a continuous decline in 12 and 15 year children but a slight increase in the dental caries status of 5-6 year children. In 1977, the mean DMFT of 12 and 15 year children was 3.88 and 4.74 respectively. In 1985, it decreased to 1.38 in 15 year olds (12 year children not recorded) and in 1993 it marginally decreased to 1.12 +/- 1.35, much lower than the figure of 3.88 in 1977. In 5-6 year children, mean dmft/dmfs of 2.69 +/- 1.45 and 6.06 +/- 9.77 was found to be slightly higher as compared to the earlier caries prevalence figures (deft + DMFT-2.6 in 1977 and 2.26 in 1985).