To examine how pediatric dentistry is fundamentally tackling caries prevention, and caries control for infants, we conducted an investigation using questionnaires from the department of pediatric dentistry of the 29 dental universities in December,1998.
1. Concerning parents education, private guidance is more important than group guidance. The instruction mainly focused on oral cleaning and eating between meals, while private guidance is being carried out to meet the individual condition of the infant.
2. At each university, the application of the fluoride was carried out actively and also diamine silver fluoride solution was used as the caries control medicine by patients of infants below 3 years of age. There were many universities which applied fluoride containing sealant to pit and fissure sealing.
3. Most of the departments of pediatric dentistry gave instruction concerning eating between meals, brushing, tooth brushing using floss, and the application of the fluoride and sealant to pit and fissure sealing. Also byte wing projection of X-ray examination, plaque score calculation, caries activity test were carried out in about half of the universities.
4. Concerning the handing of uncooperative children in the various departments of pediatric dentistry, it was found that the intervals between the periodic examinations was kept short. Instruction concerning oral cleaning was carried out in the presence of the parents and focused on caries prevention. Each university considered PMTC(Professional mechanical teeth cleaning) effective and most of them did carry out PMTC. Prevention of caries using computers or lasers was not applied due to the expense involved.