Dental caries in relation to salivary parameters among hypertensive patients in comparison to healthy individuals

Abstract EN

Background : Hypertension is one of the serious systemic diseases that may cause general systemic changes, which may be reflected in the oral cavity.

The aim of this study was to investigate caries severity among patients with hypertension, in relation to the level of pH, flow rate in stimulated saliva and to compare results with healthy individuals.

Materials and Methods : Study groups consisted of 30 newly diagnosed hypertensive males, 30 hypertensive males under the Captopril treatment, in addition to 30 healthy looking individuals.

Their age was (49-50) years.

Diagnosis and recording of dental caries was according to the WHO criteria and stimulated salivary samples were collected.

The average salivary flow rate was measured from the total volume, and the pH was determined using pH meter.

All data were analyzed using Minitab version 13.

Results : The total mean values of caries-severity were recorded to be highest among study groups compared to the control with statistically no significant difference (P >0.05).

Lowest values of salivary pH and flow rate were among study groups compared to the control one with highly significant difference for the pH (P <0.01) and non significant for the flow rate (P > 0.05).

Conclusions : The severity of dental caries among hypertensive patients was seen to be in similarity to healthy adults.

In regard to saliva, hypertensive patients had a lowest value of pH and flow rate with highly significant difference for the pH.