Mouthrinsing for the prevention of dental caries in children and adolescents was established as a mass prophylactic method in the 1960s and has shown average efficacy of caries reduction between 20-50%. Commonly, weekly or twice monthly rinsing procedures using neutral 0.2% NaF solutions have been used in schools or institutions in areas with low fluoride concentrations in the drinking water. Today, when dental caries has declined substantially in the western countries, and relatively few individuals are suffering from caries, the efficiency of large scale mouthrinsing is questioned and more individual approaches of caries prevention strategies are needed. For this reason individual caries risk assessments are necessary, utilising diagnostic tools with the aim of explaining the main causes of the caries disease. Therefore in high risk patients, daily mouthrinses using 0.05% NaF can be recommended combined with other selective preventive measures such as sugar restriction, improved oral hygiene, antibacterial treatments, and so forth. Mouthrinsing solutions have therefore been combined with antiplaque agents like chlorhexidine and other agents which can improve the caries preventive effect not only in high caries risk patients, including those with dry mouth problems and root caries. Other agents than sodium fluoride have been used, such as stannous and amine fluoride with proven clinical effects. However, although a series of new formulas of mouthrinses containing fluoride combined with different antiplaque agents have shown promising antibacterial and antiplaque efficacy, their long-term clinical effects are sparsely documented. Acute and chronic side effects from established and recommended mouthrinsing routines are extremely rare but ethanol containing products should not be recommended to children for long-term use or to individuals with alcohol problems. Patients with dry mouth problems should avoid mouthrinses containing high concentration of detergent components which reduce the substantivity of the agent and worsen the dry mouth effect. For the future, patients, dentists and public health officials will welcome new and safe, controlled and self-administrated mouthrinsing procedures with not only high efficacy, but also high effectivity and efficiency.
口腔冲洗预防儿童和青少年龋齿在20世纪60年代被确立为一种大规模预防方法，已显示出平均降低龋齿率20%至50%的效果。通常，在饮用水中氟化物浓度较低的地区，学校或机构会使用中性0.2%氟化钠溶液进行每周一次或每月两次的冲洗程序。如今，在西方国家龋齿率大幅下降，患龋齿的个体相对较少的情况下，大规模口腔冲洗的效果受到质疑，需要更多针对个体的龋齿预防策略。因此，有必要进行个体龋齿风险评估，利用诊断工具来解释龋齿疾病的主要成因。所以，对于高风险患者，可建议每日使用0.05%氟化钠进行口腔冲洗，并结合其他选择性预防措施，如限制糖分摄入、改善口腔卫生、抗菌治疗等。口腔冲洗液因此已与氯己定等抗牙菌斑剂以及其他不仅能改善高龋齿风险患者（包括口干问题患者和根面龋患者）龋齿预防效果的药剂相结合。除了氟化钠，还使用了其他药剂，如具有已证实临床效果的氟化亚锡和胺氟化物。然而，尽管一系列含有氟化物并与不同抗牙菌斑剂结合的新型口腔冲洗配方已显示出有前景的抗菌和抗牙菌斑效果，但其长期临床效果的记录却很少。既定和推荐的口腔冲洗程序的急性和慢性副作用极为罕见，但含乙醇产品不应长期推荐给儿童或有酒精问题的个体。有口干问题的患者应避免使用含有高浓度洗涤剂成分的口腔冲洗液，因为这会降低药剂的附着性并加重口干效果。未来，患者、牙医和公共卫生官员将欢迎新的、安全的、可控的和可自我管理的口腔冲洗程序，这些程序不仅要有高疗效，还要有高效性和有效性。
