Employing dmft score as a risk predictor for caries development in the permanent teeth in Japanese primary school girls.

The aim of this study was to examine the significance of evaluating dmft for predicting the incidence of permanent teeth caries in Japanese girls. The subjects were two birth cohorts in a Primary girls' school: cohort I composed of 45 girls born in 1981 and 1982 and cohort II composed of 53 girls born in 1989 and 1990. In both cohorts, there was a significant correlation between the dmft score in the first grade and the DMFT score in the sixth grade. The validity of employing dmft score was examined by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and risk ratios. The shape of the curve and areas under the curve were similar in the two cohorts. In cohort II, sensitivity and specificity for the optimal cut-off level (dmft >or= 5) were 0.519 and 0.923, respectively. The positive and negative predictive values for that level were 0.875 and 0.649, respectively. In cohort I, sensitivity and specificity were 0.741 and 0.722 for that level and positive and negative predictive values were 0.800 and 0.650, respectively. In both cohorts, the risk ratio for permanent teeth caries was significant for many cut-off levels of dmft. The results indicated that the dmft score is a useful predictor of the permanent teeth caries in Japanese primary school girls.

Effect of maclorides on duration and resolution of symptoms and complication of pneumonia in children with influenza.

UNLABELLED: We randomly administered cephalosporins or macrolides to 365 pediatric patients with influenza-like symptoms and compared the clinical course and complication rate of pneumonia. One hundred and fifty-four patients received cephalosporins (Group 1) and 211 received macrolides (Group 2). There were no significant differences in age, male/female ratio and body weight between the two groups. Macrolides alleviated fever significantly faster than cephalospoins (3.8plus minus 1.4 days vs 4.3plus minus 1.4 days), though maximum body temperature showed no significant difference between the two groups. Thirty-nine patients underwent laboratory examinations and twenty-nine had high influenza A (H3N2) virus haemagglutinate inhibition (HI) titer, six had high influenza B (B1) virus HI titer and four did not show any elevation of influenza virus HI titer. Thirteen patients in Group 1 and two patients in Group 2 suffered from pneumonia and the complication rate was significantly lower in Group 1 than in Group 2 (8.4% vs 0.9%). All of them recovered within two weeks and did not have any other complications. CONCLUSION: Macrolides are more effective in reducing the time required to alleviate fever and complication rate of pneumonia than cepharosporines in children with influenza and influenza-like illness. These results indicate that macrolides may have therapeutic value for influenza virus infection.