The Effect of Calcium Phosphate on Dental Caries in School Children

¹ The Royal School of Dentistry, Umeå, Sweden

An investigation was performed in children beginning in the third class, when the average age of the children was nine years. Examinations were made of 2,262 children during the first year of the investigation and 2,102 during the second year. In six schools, dibasic calcium phosphate was mixed intimately into two kinds of bread and into the flour and sugar used in cooking. Caries examination was preformed at the beginning and at the end of the first as well as of the second year. The method consisted of X-ray exposures for four proximal surfaces of the maxillary incisors. There was an inhibition of caries of approximately 50 per cent during the first year and 40 per cent during the second year, with an uncertainty of ± 10 per cent. These reduction figures are not to be applied to the dentition as a whole; it would be expected to be lower for the whole dentition. The mechanism of the caries-inhibiting action was discussed.