Indices for Dental Caries:     

• At the clinical exam the number of cavities, fillings and missing teeth should be recorded.

• Such a recording is an estimation of the dental caries history from the time of the eruption of the first permanent molars up to the day of examination.   Incipient caries lesions ("white spot lesions") are usually not included.  These readings provide an indices of caries prevalence and are calculated for 28 (permanent) teeth, excluding the 4 third molars. This index provides:

  How many teeth have caries lesions (D).

  How many teeth have been extracted (M).

  How many teeth have fillings or crowns (F).

  The sum of these three factors provide the DMF (T)-value.

• DMF(T) and DMF(S) are used as dental caries indices to describe numerically the amount (the prevalence) of dental caries in an individual. This provides the total cumulative caries experience. They are obtained by totaling the number of  Decayed (D) , Missing (M) and Filled (F)  teeth (T) or surfaces (S).

• Currently, we can only measures cavitated lesions.

• We cannot measure 3-D growth of the lesion.

• Using the tooth "(T)" designation, each tooth can have only one decayed or filled surface maximum.  If a tooth has both a carious lesion and a filling, it is calculated as D only.

• The"M" indicator is for missing teeth.  Teeth may be missing for reasons other than caries such as  trauma or periodontal disease. This is especially true in older individuals where periodontal disease could be a factor.. 

• A DMF(T) of 28 is maximum, meaning that all teeth are affected.    For example  (resize new screen so that you will be able to observe both browser windows.) 

  • D=4, M=3, F=9 means that 4 teeth are decayed, 3 teeth are missing and 9 teeth have fillings. 

  • The DMF(T) is the total= 16. It also means that 12 teeth are intact, since this index is based on a maximum of 28 teeth.

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