Beta diversity and community composition · Participants in oral 16S rRNA caries microbiome studies
Beta-diversity matrices showed statistically significant ADONIS results, while clustering by study and 16S region was also observed; no pooled effect estimate was reported.
1 finding from 1 review
CA VI concentration · Individuals assessed for dental caries (mainly children aged 2-9 years; one study in adults aged 18-24 years)
Salivary CA VI concentration is significantly lower in individuals with dental caries than in caries-free individuals (SMD -0.672, 95% CI -1.011 to -0.332; not GRADE-rated).
1 finding from 1 review
Relative abundance of S. mutans in saliva · Individuals assessed for dental caries, predominantly children with early childhood caries (ECC) or severe ECC (age about 1 to 4 years)
A few small studies report Streptococcus mutans relative abundance in caries versus caries-free children without pooling; the evidence is ungraded and not meta-analyzed.
1 finding from 1 review
Relative abundance of Veillonella spp. · Individuals assessed for dental caries, predominantly children with early childhood caries (ECC) or severe ECC (age about 1 to 4 years)
Evidence on whether Veillonella spp. relative abundance is higher or lower in children with dental caries than caries-free controls is inconsistent across 7 small observational studies; no pooled estimate was produced and the evidence is ungraded.
1 finding from 1 review
Caries increment on tooth surfaces (dmfs/DMFS) (prevented fraction) · Children aged 11 to 12 years with at least one active initial caries lesion, screened in a town in Finland
2 findings from 1 review
Mean (95% CI) DMFS increment after 4 years: intervention 2.56 (2.07 to 3.05) versus control 4.60 (3.99 to 5.21); significant difference favouring the intervention (P<0.0001; non-overlapping CIs). No between-group point…
1 study · 497 participants
GRADE not reported
Mean (95% CI) DMFS increment after 2 years: intervention 1.86 (1.50 to 2.21) versus control 2.44 (2.12 to 2.77); significant difference favouring the intervention (P<0.05, comparing intervention and control). No…
1 study · 497 participants
GRADE not reported
Negative oral-health impact on daily performance (OIDP or Child-OIDP) · Adolescents (10-19 years)
In the Child-OIDP subgroup, dental caries is associated with a worse oral-health impact: PR 1.66 (95% CI 1.19 to 2.31) from 6 studies (I2=96%); ungraded, and not statistically different from the OIDP subgroup (p=0.96).
5 findings from 1 review
Impact of dental caries on the quality of life of adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis. 2025 All outcomesCross-sectional (concurrent exposure and outcome); oral impacts recalled over the prior 6 months · School-based (17/20 studies), plus household and secondary-data surveys; low-, middle- and high-income countries (Brazil, Thailand, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Iran, Serbia, Nepal, India, South Africa, China) · Instrument subgroup: Child-OIDP
PR 1.66 [1.19, 2.31]
6 studies
GRADE not reported
Impact of dental caries on the quality of life of adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis. 2025 All outcomesCross-sectional (concurrent exposure and outcome); oral impacts recalled over the prior 6 months · School-based (17/20 studies), plus household and secondary-data surveys; low-, middle- and high-income countries (Brazil, Thailand, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Iran, Serbia, Nepal, India, South Africa, China) · Instrument subgroup: OIDP (all 3 studies)
PR 1.68 [0.89, 3.17]
3 studies
GRADE not reported
Impact of dental caries on the quality of life of adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis. 2025 All outcomesCross-sectional (concurrent exposure and outcome); oral impacts recalled over the prior 6 months · School-based (17/20 studies), plus household and secondary-data surveys; low-, middle- and high-income countries (Brazil, Thailand, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Iran, Serbia, Nepal, India, South Africa, China) · Instrument subgroup: OIDP, sensitivity analysis excluding Krisdapong et al.
PR 1.21 [1.15, 1.28]
2 studies
GRADE not reported
Show 2 more findings
Impact of dental caries on the quality of life of adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis. 2025 All outcomesCross-sectional (concurrent exposure and outcome); oral impacts recalled over the prior 6 months · School-based (17/20 studies), plus household and secondary-data surveys; low-, middle- and high-income countries (Brazil, Thailand, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Iran, Serbia, Nepal, India, South Africa, China) · Overall (all meta-analyzed studies pooled; both instruments and both caries definitions)
PR 1.52 [1.15, 2.01]
9 studies
GRADE not reported
Impact of dental caries on the quality of life of adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis. 2025 All outcomesCross-sectional (concurrent exposure and outcome); oral impacts recalled over the prior 6 months · School-based (17/20 studies), plus household and secondary-data surveys; low-, middle- and high-income countries (Brazil, Thailand, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Iran, Serbia, Nepal, India, South Africa, China) · Caries-definition subgroup: presence of dental caries
PR 1.19 [0.77, 1.84]
3 studies
GRADE not reported
Mean corpuscular volume (MCV) · Children or adolescents
MCV tends to be lower in children with dental caries, but the pooled difference is not statistically significant (MD -1.96 fL, 95% CI -4.02 to 0.10; very low certainty).
1 finding from 1 review
Serum ferritin (ng/mL) · Children or adolescents
Serum ferritin tends to be lower in children with dental caries, but the pooled difference is not statistically significant (MD -3.96, 95% CI -8.48 to 0.57; very low certainty).
1 finding from 1 review
Haemoglobin (g/dL) · Children or adolescents
Haemoglobin tends to be lower in children with dental caries, but the pooled difference is not statistically significant (MD -2.20 g/dL, 95% CI -4.59 to 0.19; very low certainty).
1 finding from 1 review
Differential microbial abundance / taxa predictive of caries · Individuals providing oral (saliva/supragingival plaque) 16S rRNA microbiome samples; 2016 samples from 19 studies (mixed children and…
A group of genera/species (notably Selenomonas, Aggregatibacter, Actinomyces, Treponema) was predictive of caries, whereas Streptococcus was not (ungraded).
1 finding from 1 review
Meta-analysis of caries microbiome studies can improve upon disease prediction outcomes. 2022 All outcomesOral cavity microbiome (saliva and supragingival plaque samples); pooled across 19 international studies
Mean-decrease-accuracy discriminating taxa: Capnocytophaga HMT-338, Lactobacillus panis, Treponema HMT-230, Bifidobacterium longum, Delftia acidovorans, Staphylococcus schleiferi; higher log2FC in caries: Selenomonas HMT-146, Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, Actinomyces HMT-896, Treponema HMT-257; Streptococcus not predictive
19 studies · 2016 participants
GRADE not reported
Discrimination of caries vs health (random forest ROC-AUC) · Individuals providing oral (saliva/supragingival plaque) 16S rRNA microbiome samples; 2016 samples from 19 studies (mixed children and…
Microbiome-based random forest classifiers could not reliably discriminate caries from health across the combined cohort (best AUC approximately 0.75 in a disease-only KO subset; ungraded).
1 finding from 1 review
Lacunar stroke · adults
No eligible studies were found for the association between dental caries and lacunar stroke in the meta-analysis.
1 finding from 1 review
Oral health-related quality of life · Adolescents (10-19 years)
Dental caries is associated with worse OHRQoL in adolescents, with greater severity linked to greater impact (narrative synthesis; no pooled estimate or GRADE rating).
1 finding from 1 review
Oral-health-related quality of life in adolescents: umbrella review. 2023 All outcomesCommunity/school/clinic settings; adolescents 10-19 years; included reviews conducted in multiple countries
The impact of dental caries on OHRQoL was addressed in five systematic reviews [9, 26, 34, 36, 37]. Three articles report that the greater the severity of the carious lesion, the worse the impact on OHRQoL in…
5 studies
GRADE not reported
Dental caries prevalence · Healthy children and adolescents in the United Arab Emirates
Dental caries is highly prevalent among children and adolescents in the UAE, ranging from 22% to 99.4% across cross-sectional studies (narrative synthesis; not GRADE-rated).
1 finding from 1 review
Preterm birth stratified by clinical type (spontaneous vs iatrogenic vs term) · pregnant women
The planned subanalysis by type of preterm birth (spontaneous vs iatrogenic vs term) could not be performed because of the small number of cases and lack of information in the original studies.
1 finding from 1 review
Dental caries and preterm birth: a systematic review and meta-analysis. 2018 All outcomesPregnant women assessed around delivery in observational studies across multiple countries (Mexico, Malawi, India, France, Jordan, Finland, Tanzania); mostly retrospective cohort and case-control designs · By type of PTB (spontaneous vs iatrogenic)
no estimate extracted
0 studies
GRADE not reported
Preterm birth stratified by gestational age at birth (moderate-to-late 32 to <37, very 28 to <32, extremely <28 weeks) · pregnant women
The planned subanalysis of preterm birth by gestational age at birth (moderate-to-late, very, extremely preterm) could not be performed because of the small number of cases and lack of stratified data in the original studies.
1 finding from 1 review
Dental caries and preterm birth: a systematic review and meta-analysis. 2018 All outcomesPregnant women assessed around delivery in observational studies across multiple countries (Mexico, Malawi, India, France, Jordan, Finland, Tanzania); mostly retrospective cohort and case-control designs · By gestational age at birth
no estimate extracted
0 studies
GRADE not reported
Gestational age (preterm birth < 37 weeks) · pregnant women
Pregnant women with dental caries did not have a significantly increased risk of preterm birth (pooled OR 1.16, 95% CI 0.90 to 1.49; 5 studies; I2=35%); certainty of evidence not graded.
1 finding from 1 review
Relative abundance of S. mutans in saliva · Systemically healthy individuals (children and adults, aged 40 months to 50 years) assessed for dental caries
The relative abundance of S. mutans in saliva is significantly higher in caries-active than caries-free individuals (pooled SMD 1.48, 95% CI 0.45 to 2.50), but heterogeneity is very high (I2=90%); ungraded.
1 finding from 1 review
Prevalence (detection frequency) of S. mutans in plaque · Systemically healthy individuals (children and adults, aged 40 months to 50 years) assessed for dental caries
S. mutans prevalence in plaque is significantly higher in caries-active than caries-free individuals (pooled OR 2.58, 95% CI 1.65 to 4.02; I2=16%); ungraded.
1 finding from 1 review
Dental caries (by severity) · Human subjects stratified by dental caries severity and caries-free controls
rs1126478 was inversely associated with low-level dental caries in a single study (OR 0.65, 95% CI 0.47 to 0.90; ungraded).
6 findings from 1 review
OR 0.65 [0.47, 0.90]
1 study
GRADE not reported
OR 1.20 [0.94, 1.54]
1 study
GRADE not reported
OR 1.04 [0.80, 1.34]
1 study
GRADE not reported
Show 3 more findings
OR 0.78 [0.70, 0.87]
1 study
GRADE not reported
OR 0.72 [0.65, 0.80]
1 study
GRADE not reported
OR 1.88 [1.50, 2.37]
1 study
GRADE not reported