Oral health status of kindergarten children in a medium-sized German town near the Czech border.

A cohort examination was performed to investigate the oral health status of 215 kindergarten children in a medium-sized German town near the Czech border. Despite an extensive campaign involving information events and discussions, only 130 of these children could be recruited to participate in the study. They showed a mean caries rate of 50%, which was up to 60% among the 6-year-olds. These findings clearly fall short of the WHO goals for 2000 and indicate that the geographic area covered by the study has a significant oral health deficit. The study also showed a particularly high prevalence of carious defects in a small number of children. The posterior occlusal relations were normal in 90.8 percent of cases. Deformations of the os maxillare (open bite due to finger sucking) were found in 20% of the 4 year group, in 2.3% of the 5 year group, and in 13% of the 6 year group.