Table 4.

Distribution of oral bacteria counts in plaque according to caries status

	Caries-free	Caries-active	Caries-experienced	p value
S. sanguinis				0.4010
Mean1	0.48	0.20	0.76
Median	0.49	0.16	0.46
SD	0.34	0.18	1.0
n	8	7	5
S. gordonii				0.3276
Mean1	0.31	0.15	0.29
Median	0.08	0.04	0.13
SD	0.41	0.19	0.37
n	8	7	5
A. naeslundii				0.5946
Mean1	0.67	0.09	0.11
Median	0.21	0.01	0.004
SD	0.99	0.15	0.26
n	11	13	9
S. salivarius				0.2648
Mean1	0.33	0.03	0.09
Median	0.05	0.01	0.004
SD	0.65	0.05	0.23
n	11	13	9
S. mutans				0.0680
Mean1	0.12	0.45	0.17
Median	0.002	0.01	0.001
SD	0.34	0.89	0.56
n	13	17	11

Results of pairwise comparisons: caries-active and caries-free are significantly different on S. mutans (p = 0.0433). n is the number of participants for whom bacteria data count was available. For example, there were 8 participants in the caries-free group who had S. sanguinis data available.

¹Dental plaque bacteria counts as determined by real-time qPCR and normalized by total bacteria.