Assessment Between Taste Perceptions and Fungiform Papillae Density in Children

Objectives:
The aim of this study was to evaluate whether or not salty, sweet, bitter and sour taste perceptions could add any valuable information in determining fungiform papillae density (FPD) of the school children.
Methods:
Fifty-three children (24 boys, 29 girls; aged 6 to 12) who attended to Paediatric Dentistry Department of Marmara University were included in the study. Each child tasted twice 50 ml of sodium chloride (2mg/l and 4mg/l), sucrose (12g/l and 24g/l), caffeine (0.27 g/l and 0.54g/l) and citric acid (0.6g/l and1.20g/l) solutions at random order and asked for their taste perception. The children rinsed their mouth with tap water between solutions and the same tasting protocol was followed a week later. Then each child’s FPD was assessed using Denver Papillae Protocol without dying. Two calibrated researchers evaluated FPD, if the higher FP score is within 10% of the lower FP score, it was recounted together for a consensus FP score. The number of FP per unit area was calculated. The data collected was analysed statistically using chi-square test.
Results:
Taste perception of the whole study group decreased from sweet (85%,92%), sour (75%,91%), salty (60%,75%) to bitter (13%,49%). The perception of low and high bitter tastes were found to be statistically different for FPD(p=0,000). The sensitivity and the specificity for low bitter taste and FPD were 0,85 and 0,88 respectively. The perception of low sour taste was found to be statistically different for FPD(p=0,04). The difference between FPD and high, low sweet; high, low salty and high sour taste perceptions were not significantly different.
Conclusions: Our study showed that children perceptions of tastes decreased from sweet to sour, salty and bitter taste and FPD results seems to follow this pattern accordingly. So we may conclude that the assessment of FPD can be a predictor of the taste perception in children.