Objectives: The purpose of this study was to analyze the dental caries pattern in primary dentition of Korean children aged 2-5 years old.Methods: The dental caries pattern in primary dentition was analyzed using data from the Korea Na-tional Oral Health Survey, 2006. Subjects for this study were 582 children aged 2-5 years old. Statistical analysis was conducted with frequency analysis, correlation analysis, cluster analysis, and multiple cor-respondence analysis.Results: The tooth with highest prevalence of caries experience at 5 years old was the tooth 85 and the tooth 75 was followed. When dentition was divided on the basis of quadrants, the correlation of caries occurrence was more related to the relationship between the left and right teeth rather than the upper and lower teeth. In particular, the correlation of left and right caries occurrence was high in the man-dible. In order to analyze the dental caries pattern under the age of 5 years, we divided the teeth into four clusters, i.e., deciduous incisors, first deciduous molars, mandibular second deciduous molars, and maxillary second deciduous molars. In children aged 2 and 3 years, severe early childhood caries pat-tern (ECC pattern) was observed. If it was divided into two clusters at age 4, the pattern was visible in which teeth were divided into anterior and posterior caries. Our multiple correspondence analysis results did not perfectly match those of the cluster analysis, but it was helpful to visually identify the teeth show-ing a similar caries pattern.Conclusions: Differences in the dental caries pattern in primary dentition was age dependent. Informa-tion on caries pattern in primary dentition by each tooth can be useful for study on caries in primary dentition and clinical care.

Keywords: Caries pattern, Cluster analysis, Korean children, Primary dentition