Caries preventive effect of high fluoride and xylitol containing dentifrices.

Dental examinations were conducted in 1987 on 520 of the 753 children who fully participated in a three-year field-trial, 1983-1986, of the anticaries effect of dentifrices containing fluoride and xylitol. The prevalence of decayed (D), missing (M) and filled (F) permanent teeth differed significantly among the five treatment groups. Caries prevalence was inversely related to the level of fluoride, 1250, 2500 and 5000 ppm, in the dentifrice used, but was not associated with the presence or absence of 15 mg percent xylitol. The age, number of children, and number of erupted teeth were unequally dispersed among treatment groups. The DMF teeth scores showed non-normal distributions and nonhomogeneous variances. Following an exploratory scrutiny, the DMFT data were transformed to normal distributions for intra- and inter-treatment-group evaluation. All groups showed positive, significant regressions of DMF scores with the age of the children and an inverse significant regression with DMFT scores in relation to the fluoride content of the dentifrice under test.