Stabilisation of rampant caries: XXXX gums and arrest of dentine caries in two long-term cohort studies in young subjects.

@entity8372 @entity75 @entity5121 @entity969 @entity1167 @entity8371
The purpose of this paper is to report clinical observations on the stabilisation of dentine caries in two chewing gum studies carried out in young subjects. One study focused on the permanent dentition of 1,277 initially 10-year old subjects, while the other study was carried out on 510 initially 6-year old subjects and focused on the primary dentition. In both trials, several chewing gum formulas containing dietary @entity8371 ( @entity8372 and @entity5121 , or their combinations) were used for up to 40 months (10-year olds) or up to 24 months (6-year olds). The daily consumption level of both @entity8371 was up to 10.7 g per subject, used normally in 5-minute chewing episodes 3 to 5 times per day. Supervised chewing in schools lasted 5 min per episode, and for variable times during non-school days. Rehardening of @entity75 was observed clinically by experienced, blinded examiners using sharp dental explorers and fibre optic light. After 40 months (permanent dentition) or after 18 months (primary dentition), rehardening ( @entity1167 ) generally occurred more frequently in subjects who used @entity8371 gums than in subjects who did not receive gum as part of the programmes, or who received @entity969 gum. Arrest or non-progression of dentine caries was most frequently observed in subjects who used 100 per cent @entity8372 gums or mixtures of @entity8372 and @entity5121 , but the differences between gums were not consistently significant. However, the usage of 100 per cent @entity8372 pellet-shaped gum was more frequently associated with arrest of dentine caries than other treatments. These results and previous studies suggest that high- @entity8372 chewing gum usage can retard or arrest even rampant dentine caries in conditions where effective restoration and prevention programmes have not been instituted, and can also provide additional protection against further caries development during full implementation of restorative procedures by holding the lesion in a non-progressive condition.
