Correlation between dental caries experience and the level of Streptococcus mutans and lactobacilli in saliva and carious teeth in a Yemeni adult population

Table 2 Comparison of the relative amounts of tested bacteria with DMFT index in the caries-active and caries-free groups by using Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney U tests

	Caries-active	Caries-free	p	CF saliva	CA saliva	Caries tissue	p
	Median		p	Median			p
SM	4.1 × 10⁶	4.9 × 10⁶	0.001*^a	4.4	4.6 × 10⁶	4.4 × 10⁶	0.006*^b
LBs	3.3 × 10⁶	3.5 × 10⁶	0.000*^a	3.3	3.2 × 10⁶	3.3 × 10⁶	0.001*^b
DMFT	8.0	0	0.000*^a	0	9.0		0.000*^b
CF saliva				–	0.000*^c	0.000*^c
CA saliva				0.016^*d	–	1.000
Carious tissue				0.004^*e	1.000	–

* p < 0.05, ^aSM, LBs, and DMFT score in caries-active and caries-free subjects; ^bSM, LBs, and DMFT score in the three types of samples (caries-free saliva, caries-active saliva, and carious tissue); ^cdifference between samples in relation to DMFT score; ^ddifference between samples in relation to SM and ^eto LBs, ^{f, g}decayed, missing, and filled in relation to SM, LBs, and DMFT score