Stability of Selected Plaque Species and Their Relationship to Caries in a Child Population over 2 Years

Abstract

With standardized plaque sampling techniques, bacterial populations were studied on the fissures of 500 unrestored lower first permanent molars in 279 children 6–7 years old at the beginning of a 2-year period. Samples were taken every 6 months. Actinomyces species, Veillonella, Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus sanguis, and Lactobacillus species were detected in a range from 300 to 5 × 10⁷ colony-forming units per plaque sample. S. mutans and lactobacilli were found to be the most numerically stable of the species investigated, and high numbers of these two were associated with the development of fissure caries.