Comparison of the anticaries efficacy of dentifrices containing fluoride as sodium fluoride or sodium monofluorophosphate.

The dominance of the marketplace by dentifrices containing fluoride as sodium monofluorophosphate and sodium fluoride has given rise to great academic and commercial interest regarding the comparison of those two fluoride species. Since the 1970's, several comparative clinical trials have been conducted to investigate the relative anticaries efficacy of dentifrices containing these two agents, generally giving rise to equivocal results. Recently, attention has been turned to investigative efforts which employ information derived from the collective body of relevant comparative clinical studies available in the literature to establish an omnibus conclusion concerning this issue. Beginning with the sign test of Beiswanger & Stookey (1989), and continuing through the meta-analyses of Johnson (1993) and Proskin (1993), this line of research remains vital today. The recent publication of two studies (Marks et al, 1994; Stephen et al, 1994) previously documented in the literature only in abstract form (Conti et al, 1993; Stephen et al, 1993) has given rise to the need for the present meta-analytic reconsideration of the available data. As in the previous meta-analyses, the quantitative results obtained depended on the studies which provided data for the calculations. However, as also indicated in previously-documented meta-analyses, the clinical interpretation of the results, which was based on the guidelines published by the American Dental Association (Council on Dental Therapeutics, 1988), did not vary according to study selection.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)