A FIELD STUDY ON EFFECT OF A DENTIFRICE CONTAINING SODIUM MONOFLUOROPHOSPHATE IN CARIES PREVENTION

• Published in: JOURNAL OF DENTAL HEALTH Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 26 - 38
• Main Authors: TAKEUCHI, Mitsuharu, SHIMIZU, Tokio, KAWASAKI, Tohru, KIZU, Takehisa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Japanese Society for Oral Health 1968
• ISSN: 0023-2831; 2189-7379
• DOI: 10.5834/jdh.18.26

Basically, this research project was planned with Takeuchi's conception of epidemiological principles on dental caries attack. The standard of diagnosis of dental caries was in accordance with those decided by WHO, while attention was paid to those points which were reported by ADA as being necessary in such a conduct. The subjects employed in this field work were third and fourth grades in 1964 in primary schools in urban and rural environments, and the investigation was made on two kinds of caries attacked tooth surface, one was the presence of tooth surfaces showing only the clinical caries by WHO standard, and in the other, tooth surfaces having spots such as white and/or chalky spots, rough spots or tiny discoloured spots were included, as well as the above-mentioned tooth surfaces showing clinical caries. By stratified random sampling in various degrees of caries, the subjects were divided into experimental group and control group. A dentifrice containing 0.7% sodium monofluorophosphate (Na2PO3F) was given to the experimental group, while a dentifrice containing no fluoride component was given to the control group. Both were instructed to brush their teeth properly twice a day, and were supervised to continue it for one year. The numbers of subjects who could cooperate throughout the year were 611 in the experimental group, and 619 in the control group. The judgment of the effect of caries prevention was done merely in the limited range of the mesial and distal surfaces of the upper central incisors and the mesial surfaces of the upper lateral incisors. The result was as follows: The caries incidence rates under the diagnosis of the clinical caries alone were the experimental group 4.27%, and the control group 5.64%, that is, the percent reduction was 24.3. On the other hand, the caries incidence rates under the diagnosis of the above-mentioned spots in addition to the clinical caries were the experimental group 9.30%, and the control group 11.88%, showing 21.7% of reduction. These differences in the caries incidence rates were statistically significant. The reversal of diagnosis of clinical caries and spots were 5.0% in the experimental group, and 2.7% in the control group. From these results of field work, the dentifrice containing sodium monofluorophosphate was recognized to be effective in the prevention of dental caries.