Economic evaluation of dental caries prevention: a systematic review.

Kallestal C, Norlund A, Soder B, Nordenram G, Dahlgren H, Petersson LG, Lagerlof F, Axelsson S, Lingstrom P, Mejare I, Holm AK, Twetman S. National Institute of Public Health, Stockholm, Sweden. carina.kallestal@fhi.se

The aim of the present study was to perform a systematic review of economic evaluations of caries prevention. A search in Medline from 1966 until May 2003 and a manual search in a number of journals identified 154 references, 74 of which were included. There were 17 original studies including an economic evaluation, and these form the basis of the present article. The rest were reviews, model studies and reports concerning economic practice in dentistry. The results show that the reviewed original studies on economic evaluation of caries prevention do not provide support for the economic value of caries prevention. The scarcity of well-conducted studies, as well as contradictory evidence in the reviewed articles, makes it difficult to judge the health-economic effect of the studied caries-prevention methods.