Trends in dental and medical research and relevance of randomized controlled trials to common activities in general dentistry

The aim was to study publication trends in dental and medical research as well as the proportion of randomized controlled trials in dental research (RCT-Ds) of relevance to common activities in general dentistry. The study was based on Medline searches, 1969 99 (MeSH terms). Data from Public Dental Services (county of Ostergötland, Sweden) were used to find the most common activities in the practice of general dentistry,. In dental research the annual number of publications had decreased from 5,900 in 1969 to 4,400 in 1999, corresponding to 9,100 and 14,000, respectively, in medical research. Clinical trials in dental research had increased to 7% and RCT-Ds to 5% of all dental research during 1969 99. In medicine, clinical trials and randomized controlled trials had increased to 2% and 1%, respectively. In dental and medical research, meta-analyses (MAs) totalled 0.1-0.2% in 1994 and 1999. One out of 200 dental research publications in 1979 99 was an RCT-D of relevance to the most common activities in general dentistry. These activities contributed to more than 80% of the dental care of children and adolescents and to more than 60% of the dental care of adults in 1999.