The change of DMFT counts in Slovenia.

This longitudinal study was designed to assess the change in caries prevalence and DMFT counts in the adult population of Ljubljana, Slovenia, over a 10-year period. All data in the present study are derived from two surveys conducted in 1983-1987 and 1993-1997. In the first survey, 1,609 dentate subjects in the range from 15 to 65 years were examined. Ten years later, 555 (34.5%) of these subjects participated in the second oral survey. In the 538 dentate 25- to 75-year-old subjects examined in the second survey, a decline in the mean number of decayed teeth (1.1 vs. 0.5) was found, and an increase in DMFT counts (15.9 vs. 19.1) due to a higher number of missing (5.2 vs. 7.5) and filled teeth (9.7 vs. 11.1) was observed. However, a comparison with the previous generation of the same age showed a decline in the average number of decayed and missing teeth in all age groups and an increase in the mean number of filled teeth in all age groups as well. The population of Ljubljana from the 1993-1997 survey had retained in most of the age groups about 2 teeth more than had the generation 10 years before.