Caries Prevalence In German Recruits In 1992, 1996 And 1999 T. Kaiser*, C.Ganss, T. Assmann And J. Klimek (Dental Clinic, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany) Since 1989 prophylactic measures had become a part of the dental procedures covered by the statutory health insurance. As a consequence DMFT values in children and juveniles decreased drastically during the nineties. For young adults no data are available by now. It was against this background that we surveyed male army recruits in 1992 (n=265), 1996 (n=275) and 1999 (n=362) with a mean age of 20.9±1.7, 20.4±1.8 and 20.8±1.6 years. All subjects were clinically examined under standardised conditions by three calibrated dentists to assess DMFT and DMFS values and to obtain their sociodemographic data. The education level was classified as low, medium or high.   The following DMFT/ DMFS values were found:     D - T M - T F - T DMFT 1992 (n=265) 3.2±3.5 0.8±1.3 7.2±4.5 11.2±5.2 1996 (n=275) 2.3±2.7 0.2±0.6 5.0±3.8 7.5±4.8 1999 (n=362) 1.2±2.3 0.6±1.2 6.1±4.4 8.0±4.9     D-S M-S F-S DMFS 1992 (n=265) 6.1±9.1 3.9±6.4 14.3±11.4 24.3±16.0 1996 (n=275) 3.9±5.5 1.2±3.1 9.1±8.4 14.2±11.5 1999 (n=362) 2.4±5.6 3.1±6.1 11.0±9.8 16.6±13.5   In all three age groups a correlation between the DMFT values and the education level were found. In subadults with low education level the DMFT values were 11.7±5.5 in 1992, 8.9±5.3 in 1996 and 8.9±5.3 in 1999. The corresponding data for subjects with high education level were 10.6±5.0, 6.4±4.3 and 6.4±4.2. From these results it seems that the benefit of the newly introduced prophylactic measures is greater for subjects with high than with low education level. In total the results show a remarkable decrease of DMFT values during the years 1992 and 1996 and a confirmation of this tendency in 1999.