Managing dental caries in children: improving acceptability and outcomes through changing priorities and understanding the disease.

This new approach to dentistry for children with dental caries provides a deliverable treatment philosophy for practitioners. It centres around leading children into adulthood with a caries-free permanent dentition, with responsibility and ability to care for their mouth and teeth, and without fear of dental treatment. There are three parts: changing attitudes and priorities; redressing the balance of prevention; and taking advantage of new understanding around caries and the biofilm, applying it to less invasive dental treatments which are easier for children to cope with. While dentistry for children should be of as high a standard as for adults, it is not the same as dentistry for adults.