The CODS (Clinical Score of Oral Dryness)

 To develop a Clinical Oral Dryness Score (CODS) for routine use in assessment of xerostomia patients and determine its relationship with salivary flow rates (SFR) and mucosal wetness (MW).

Method:

CODS was determined from 10 features of oral dryness, each scoring as 1 point on a score of 0-10. CODS, SFR and MUCOSAL WETNESS were measured in 100 patients and 50 healthy controls. The reproducibility of CODS was between 0.89 and 0.96 intraclass correlation coefficient.

 Results:

The mean ± SD CODS in patients was 6.0 ± 1.6 compared with 1.0 ± 0.9 for controls (p < 0.001), and the highest mean value was in the Sjögren's syndrome group. There was a general inverse relationship in patients between mean CODS and SFR (p<0.01) and mean CODS and Mucosal wetness (p<0.01).

Conclusion:

The clinical oral dryness score (CODS) was found to be reliable and easy to use for routine assessment of the severity of dry mouth (hyposalivation). CODS could discriminate between those with moderate reductions in mucosal wetness even when the UWS salivary flow rate was within the accepted normal range. On the basis of the results of this study, CODS can be incorporated into the routine clinical assessment of dry mouth patients, particularly since the clinician would be undertaking most aspects of the clinical assessment normally in any case. A combination of CODS and mucosal wetness measurement in addition to the more widely applied UWS flow rate provides a very useful objective assessment of oral dryness and saliva production.