[Modern methods of caries treatment].

Methods of treatment of advanced caries with loss of hard dental tissues are reviewed discerning especially six such methods: 1) adhesive filling using composites, 2) filling with composites resistant to mechanical trauma, 3) filling made of conventional composites, and polyacrylate cements, 4) conventional filling with silicon cements, 5) conventional filling with silver amalgam, 6) filling with inserts. The author points out that as yet there is not plastic material better than amalgam for filling defects of class I, II and V where aesthetic requirements are not important.

[Prophylactic filling and treatment of initial stages of caries].

The paper presents new concepts of caries treatment, stressing that the condition of its acceptance is a high level of health consciousness of the patient, warranting a close cooperation with the dentists for controlling this widespread disease. The author thinks that the most important methods of treatment available in world stomatology may be divided in three groups: I--prophylactic, with filling preventively the sites predisposed to the development of caries, II--treatment of initial stages of caries, III--treatment of advanced caries with loss of hard tissues of teeth. The necessity is stressed of more intense, more widespread and more systematic than presently raising of the health consciousness of our population, for detection and treatment of initial--reversible stages of caries, prophylactic filling of fissures and sulci in the freshly erupted teeth, depending on economic possibilities.

[Clinical classification of traumatic dental injuries].

In the world stomatological literature many more or less extensive clinical classification of posttraumatic damage to teeth are available. In the Polish stomatological school Ellis classification is used most frequently. However, this classification comprising nine classes of traumatic teeth damage is not sufficiently precise in the descriptions qualifying various classes.

[Activity of certain salivary enzymes in school children exposed to excessive concentrations of lead and cadmium].

The purpose of the study was assessment of the effect of an environment contaminated with heavy metals on the activity of certain enzymes of mixed saliva. The activity was determined of total acid phosphatase and phosphatase resistant to tartrate and formaldehyde, alkaline phosphatase, alanine and aspartate aminotransferase, and alpha-amylase. The studied material comprised 110 saliva samples obtained from three groups of children aged 8 years.