Intervention not reported
Caries prevalence
1 finding from 1 review
Alpha diversity (Observed, Chao1, Shannon, and Simpson) · Participants in oral 16S rRNA caries microbiome studies
Across the combined sample set, alpha-diversity metrics were significantly higher in caries than in health, but no pooled effect estimate was reported.
1 finding from 1 review
Caries experience at the surface level (dmfs/defs) · Children (mean age newborn to ~5.2 years) and their parents/carers
Comprehensive interventions produced a small, statistically significant reduction in surface-level caries (dmfs SMD -0.14, 95% CI -0.26 to -0.02; 10 studies; not GRADE-rated).
1 finding from 1 review
Food purchasing · Children and adolescents (general population, aged under 20 years)
Across five studies, 40% showed any association of potential public health harm for food purchasing (very low certainty).
1 finding from 1 review
Early childhood caries (ECC) - association at lead SNP rs563135 (10:115067899; nearest gene(s) TCF7L2, CASP7) · Children up to age 5-6 years (European / European non-Hispanic ancestry); 843 ECC-affected vs 2124 unaffected across 5 cohorts (N=2974)
The common variant rs563135 near TCF7L2, CASP7 showed suggestive (not genome-wide significant) association with ECC (Z = -4.532, p = 5.86e-6); genetic association, ungraded.
1 finding from 1 review
Intervention not reported
Alpha diversity (study-level, caries vs health)
1 finding from 1 review
Physical growth / weight gain · Healthy, term-born, normal-birth-weight infants aged 4-24 months (breastfed and/or formula-fed) in Western industrialized countries
Two RCTs suggest responsive complementary feeding leads to better weight gain in the first two years, though effects were small and not always sustained (ungraded).
1 finding from 1 review
Dental caries prevalence · European adolescents aged 16 years
Pooled caries prevalence was 0.94.
1 finding from 1 review
Dental caries · Healthy children aged 6–24 months in Western industrialized countries
No eligible trials explored caregivers' feeding practices during complementary feeding and dental caries.
1 finding from 1 review
no estimate extracted
0 studies
No studies found
Enamel caries proportion · European adolescents aged 18 years
Pooled enamel caries proportion was 0.29 (I² = 99.3%).
1 finding from 1 review
Plaque · Adults and children (predominantly adults; one study in children), with natural dentition
Sugar-free chewing gum significantly reduced plaque quantity versus no-gum/control (SMD -0.778, 95% CI -1.167 to -0.390), with high heterogeneity (I2 = 86.6%) and no GRADE rating (ungraded).
2 findings from 1 review
Enamel caries proportion · European adolescents aged 12–19 years
Enamel caries made up about half of total caries experience (pooled proportion 0.50, 95% CI 0.39 to 0.65; 7 studies; higher in 12–15 than 16–19-year-olds; not GRADE-rated).
3 findings from 1 review
Proportion 0.50 [0.39, 0.65]
7 studies · 7056 participants
GRADE not reported
Proportion 0.37 [0.24, 0.56]
3 studies
GRADE not reported
Proportion 0.56 [0.42, 0.76]
8 studies
GRADE not reported
Oral health-related quality of life · Children with dental caries
The network estimate found no statistically significant difference in oral health-related quality of life between atraumatic restorative treatment and silver diamine fluoride.
2 findings from 1 review
Mucocele · Children or adolescents
No significant difference in mucocele between groups (OR 3.03, 95% CI 0.12 to 75.37; single study).
1 finding from 1 review
Immediate bond strength (MPa) · Glass-ionomer cement bonded to caries-affected dentin (in vitro)
SDF pretreatment with a rinsing step does not affect glass-ionomer cement bond strength to caries-affected dentin (MD -0.36 MPa, 95% CI -1.07 to 0.35; ungraded).
1 finding from 1 review
Immediate bond strength (MPa) · Glass-ionomer cement bonded to dentin (in vitro), sound or caries-affected
Prior SDF application does not influence the immediate bond strength of glass-ionomer cement to dentin (MD -0.11 MPa, 95% CI -0.54 to 0.31; ungraded).
1 finding from 1 review
Caries experience at the surface level (dmfs/defs) · Children (mean age newborn to ~5.2 years) and their parents/carers
Behaviour change interventions delivered by non-dental health workers produced a small, statistically significant reduction in caries experience at the surface level (dmfs SMD -0.15, 95% CI -0.25 to -0.04; 12 studies); the review judged the overall evidence to be of low quality (not GRADE-rated).
1 finding from 1 review
Alpha diversity (Shannon) · Children providing oral (saliva/supragingival plaque) 16S rRNA microbiome samples
In children, caries-vs-health Shannon alpha diversity differed significantly (ungraded).
1 finding from 1 review
Dentinal caries in permanent (newly erupted) teeth · School children and adolescents (6-18 years) followed from primary dentition (baseline examination before 72 months of age)
Dentinal caries in the primary dentition is associated with about 3.2 times higher odds of dentinal caries in permanent teeth (single study; not GRADE-rated).
1 finding from 1 review
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