In this article the results are presented of an evaluation of crowns and bridges in a general practice. The study includes 601 solitary crowns, 213 crowns on bridge abutments and 103 crowns on RPD abutments. In total eighty-four bridges were examined. All these restorations were constructed during a period of 11.5 years. By means of the Kaplan-Meier method a prognosis is given of the life span of the different solitary crown-types over periods between 1 and 11 years. The total amount of failures and follow-up treatments on bridge and RPD abutments was very small. The authors also examined whether the bridges were constructed according Ante's law. A follow-up of this study in other Dutch general practices in combination with experimental clinical trials is under way.

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Occlusion, defined as the presence of contact of antagonistic teeth, has been measured. This has been done by measuring the amount and magnitude of holes in bite registration materials taken from nine persons with complete natural dentitions. In spite of clear differences between the bites found by inspection, small differences have been found by measurement. Bite-, day- and testee-effects were controlled. The implications of the findings are discussed in terms of reliability and also of the epidemiological and clinical applicability of the method.

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A mixed longitudinal descriptive survey has been designed to answer some questions regarding the effectiveness of dental health care. For a period of 20 years the dental records of 845 Dutch servicemen have been analyzed with regard to the amount of dental treatment per tooth and surface. Cross-sectional results of this study are compared with those of other studies. Generally the results of this study concerning restorations and extractions per tooth type accord with the literature. The provision of full dentures is relatively low in the Army.