An orodental epidemiologic survey conducted in the school environment in the Great Southwest of France

: Within the framework of a national epidemiological study, a regional study of the oral conditions of a representative survey of 1174 schoolchildren aged 6 to 15 years, was conducted in the south-west Region of France. This Region studied by the Dental School of Bordeaux comprised the departments of Dordogne, Gironde, Landes, Lot-et-Garonne, Pyrenees-Atlantiques, Charente and Charente-Maritime. Only 8.8% of the 15 years old children were caries free. The mean DMFT was 4.3 at age 12 years whereas the mean DMFS at the same age was 6.6. At the age of 15, these indices reached respectively the values of 6.5 and 11.4. The most affected sites were the pits and fissures, followed by the approximal and smooth surfaces (respectively 59.3%, 25.4% and 15.3% at age 15). The plaque index varied only slightly around 0.9, whereas the calculus index increased regularly from 0.0 to 0.4 between the ages of 6 to 15 years. The gingival index, which was 0.1 at age 6, remained stable around 0.3 between 8 and 15 years of age.