The relation of salivary glucose with dental caries and mutans streptococci among type 1 diabetic mellitus patients aged 18-22 years

Abstract EN

Background : Diabetic is a chronic systemic disorder of glucose metabolism.

That could be diagnosed using fasting and/or random plasma glucose and Glycated Haemoglobin (HbA1c).

Several biochemical and microbial alterations of saliva could affect dental caries occurrence and severity among diabetic patients.

The aim of the present study was to assess the relation of salivary glucose with severity of dental caries and Mutans Streptococci, among uncontrolled and controlled diabetic groups in comparison with non-diabetic control group.

Materials and Methods : The total sample composed of adults aged (18-22) years.

Divided into 25 uncontrolled diabetic patients (HbA1c > 7), 25 controlled diabetic patients (HbA1c ≤ 7), in addition to 25 non-diabetic healthy looking individuals.

Fasting blood sugar was determined for the diabetic patients.

The diagnosis and recording of dental caries was according to severity of dental caries lesion through the application of D1_4MFS (Manji et al, 1989) and stimulated salivary samples were collected under standardized condition (Tenovuo and Lagerlöf, 1994).

Salivary glucose was estimated using spectrophotometric analysis.

Viable count of mutans streptococci (on Mitis- Salivarius Bacitracin Agar) was determined.

Results : salivary glucose among uncontrolled diabetic group and controlled diabetic group were highly significant higher than control group (p < 0.01).

Analysis among uncontrolled diabetic patients and non-diabetic control group revealed that the salivary glucose correlate positively highly significant with caries experience represented DMFS (p < 0.01), while among controlled diabetic group the correlation was not significant in positive direction concerning DMFS (p > 0.05).

The correlation between salivary glucose and Mutans Streptococci among three groups was highly significant in positive direction (p < 0.01).

Conclusion : There are significant correlations between salivary glucose, severity of dental caries and mutans streptococci in uncontrolled diabetic group.