title: Early childhood caries--incidence and need for treatment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The peculiarities of early childhood require specific approaches to dental caries treatment. The necessity of discussing this problem has justified the undertaking of this study.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim was to determine caries incidence rate and the need for its treatment in children aged 12 to 47 months.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study included 370 children from Plovdiv. It was conducted in accordance with the World Health Organization requirements for epidemiological study of dental caries. Three age groups were formed: group I (12-23 months), group II (24-35 months), and group III (36-47 months). Dental caries on a cavitation level was diagnosed by means of a probe and a mirror. The indicators of caries incidence--total and separately by active and treated caries, as well as the percentage of surfaces with active caries were determined.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Caries incidence rate in group I was 0.54, in group II--1.45 and in group III--1.85. A rapid increase of these values was observed between I and II group--P < 0.001. In all age groups the active caries incidence, as well as the percentage of surfaces with active caries were considerably higher than that of treated caries incidence, P < 0.001.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In the studied populations dental caries is treated only in a very small number of cases. Further studies are necessary for determining the causes for this--causes attributable to the parents, as well to the practising dentists.
authors.affiliation: Higher Medical Institute, Department of Pediatric Dentistry, 24 Veliko Tarnovo St., 4000 Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Dimitrova
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Kukleva
authors.forename: V K
authors.initials: VK
authors.lastname: Kondeva
mesh_terms: D002031:Bulgaria / Q000453:epidemiology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D014094:Tooth, Deciduous / Q000473:pathology