Factors associated with caries incidence in an elderly population.
The purpose of this paper was to identify baseline factors associated with future caries development in older adults (age 60+) during a 3-year study period. Poisson regression analysis was used to determine the association between potential risk factors and disease incidence. The significant factors associated with high coronal caries incidence rates were high baseline root DMFS (P<0.001), high counts of mutans streptococci and lactobacilli (P=0.036), male gender (P=0.007), and Asian ethnicity (P=0.002). These factors had small to moderate effects on incidence rates, with relative risk values of approximately 1.2 to 2. The significant factors associated with higher disease incidence on root surfaces were baseline coronal DMFS (marginally significant, P=0.078), high bacterial counts (P=0.002), and Asian ethnicity (P=0.009). The predictive value of the models was low for both coronal and root caries. This result may be because this population had a higher than usual caries incidence rate, making discrimination among these caries-active individuals difficult. The current study affirmed the value of baseline DMFS and salivary variables to modeling caries incidence and introduced ethnicity as a variable useful for the study of dental caries in older adults.
Department of Restorative Dentistry, University of Washington, Seattle 98195, USA. lvpowell@u.washington.edu
L V
LV
Powell
B G
BG
Leroux
R E
RE
Persson
H A
HA
Kiyak
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001213:Asian / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D004245:DMF Index; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000453:epidemiology*; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007778:Lactobacillus / Q000254:growth & development; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012307:Risk Factors; D017213:Root Caries / Q000453:epidemiology; D012463:Saliva / Q000502:physiology; D012737:Sex Factors; D013295:Streptococcus mutans / Q000254:growth & development; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology