Correlation between some salivary tests, oral hygiene and caries in children.

gn 137 children whose ages varied from 2-14 years, salivary tests and oral hygiene levels were determined for boys and girls separately. Only the unstimulated flow (flow 1) differed significantly between boys and girls. For the initiation and further development of new caries lesions more precise definitions were used in which the results were corrected for number of teeth present and for the time interval between the observations. The caries scores for all children together were correlated with the several salivary test results as well as with oral hygiene levels. The initiation of caries was correlated with oral hygiene as well as with the Snyder test. The further development of caries correlated almost significantly with the inorganic composition of the saliva alone. No correlation was found between the initiation and the further development of caries.