Findings

What do systematic reviews say?

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Evidence found and GRADE certainty

2,297 questions · 3,638 findings · 215 reviews · Oral Health

No studies found 98 · 2.7%GRADE not reported 2,946 · 81%Very low 263 · 7.2%Low 158 · 4.3%Moderate 137 · 3.8%High 36 · 1%

Food marketing exposure or greater marketing power vs No, less, or less powerful food marketing

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

Common genetic variants genome-wide (GWAS; ~3.9 million SNPs with MAF > 5%) vs ECC-unaffected children (per-allele case-control association)

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

Responsive complementary feeding (RCF) vs Other models of complementary feeding (traditional/non-responsive CF)

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

Gum chewing (sugar-free) vs No chewing gum

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 quantification (DeS/DeT within total D(M)FS/D(M)FT) vs None (descriptive prevalence review; subgroup analyses by urban/rural status, country and year)

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

Atraumatic restorative treatment vs Silver diamine fluoride

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

Living with HIV and undergoing antiretroviral therapy (ART/HAART) vs Healthy HIV-negative controls

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

Prior SDF application with a rinsing step vs No prior SDF application (untreated dentin control)

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

Prior application of silver diamine fluoride (SDF), with or without a rinsing step vs No prior SDF application (untreated dentin control)

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

Behaviour change / oral health promotion interventions delivered by non-dental professionals and health workers (nurses, midwives, health visitors, community health workers) vs control (no intervention/usual care/isotonic exercise)

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

Dental caries (carious oral microbiome) vs Caries-free / healthy oral microbiome

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 primary dentition (at 5 years) vs Caries-free primary dentition

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

Dental caries (carious oral microbiome) vs Caries-free / healthy oral microbiome

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

Antiretroviral therapy (any, including cART) vs No antiretroviral medication (treatment-naive)

Mucocele prevalence · Children and adolescents (<18 years) living with HIV (CLWH)

No significant difference in mucocele between CLWH with and without ART (very low certainty).

1 finding from 1 review

Early childhood caries (ECC) vs Caries-free controls

Relative abundance of Veillonella spp. · Young children with early childhood caries and caries-free controls

Veillonella spp. is more abundant in children with early childhood caries than in caries-free children (mean difference 2.22, 95% CI 0.54 to 3.90); very low certainty.

3 findings from 1 review · compare the 2 reviews

Common genetic variants genome-wide (GWAS; ~3.9 million SNPs with MAF > 5%) vs ECC-unaffected children (per-allele case-control association)

Early childhood caries (ECC) - association at lead SNP rs1044956 (7:24854765; nearest gene(s) OSBPL3, NPVF) · 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 rs1044956 near OSBPL3, NPVF showed suggestive (not genome-wide significant) association with ECC (Z = 4.551, p = 5.35e-6); genetic association, ungraded.

2 findings from 1 review