Optimal recall intervals in child dental care.

A favorite quote from John Fowles can be applied to the debate over the optimal recall intervals for children: "Total sight or all else is desolation." Piecemeal considerations such as the patient's caries prevalence or the rate of progression of a carious lesion, on their own, are insufficient to determine the optimal time for a recall examination. Only a regular, comprehensive examination permits the dentist to understand and apply the ecological model--how best to reduce the incidence of a oral disease and how best to care for or alleviate a disease process. This knowledge permits a practitioner to customize, to individualize his decisions with respect to frequency of examination, and when and where to apply preventive and/or treatment regimens. This applies to the management of dental caries, periodontal conditions, and growth and development problems of the dental/oral-facial complex. A practitioner can only manage the whole patient-as opposed to just the disease entity-by individualizing the frequency of recall examinations. Similarly, we can only implement optimal preventive measures-and ethically postpone invasive procedures-by individualizing recall examinations.