"When we apply this to young children, it allows us to predict what might be their future caries history - the number of cavities that they'll get by, say, their late 20s or early 30s," says researcher Paul Denny. Called the Caries Assessment and Risk Evaluation (CARE) test, the test measures the relative proportions in saliva of different types of sugar chains called oligosaccharides. The same sugar chains are present on tooth surfaces.