Comprehensive Oral Health Center for Discovery: New Strategies for Enhancing Tissue Integrity and Repair Early Childhood Caries: Prevention and Treatment Outcomes

This project was a prospective, randomized clinical trial (RCT) among initially caries-free children from about six months old (when primary teeth erupt) up to age three at two public health facilities in San Francisco, one serving a primarily Latino and one a primarily Asian population. The RCT 1) Compared the efficacy of once or twice/year fluoride varnish (FV) application and counseling to counseling alone in preventing early childhood caries (ECC); 2) Assessed pre-intervention salivary markers (biologic and chemical), behavioral and demographic factors as predictors of ECC; 3) Compared the efficacy of these interventions between sites serving different ethnic populations with a high prevalence of ECC; and 4) Determined the salivary fluoride release profile following exposure to fluoride varnish.