Methods: Altogether 122 children aged 12-13 years were screened with the Dentocult SM® (Orion Diagnostica, Turku, Finland) test. Those children with high (>100000 CFU/ml) MS counts in saliva or plaque were included in the intervention. The children were randomly allocated to the xylitol and control groups (sorbitol chewing gum), using classrooms as clusters. The following bacterial species were quantified from stimulated saliva samples using Real Time PCR: Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus sobrinus, Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus paracasei, and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans. Species-specific forward and reverse primers were used. Changes in the salivary microbes before and after the intervention were evaluated.
Results: There were no statistically significant differences between the groups at the beginning or at the end of the study. However, the saliva samples showed statistically significant reductions in the counts of all 5 studied bacteria both in the xylitol and the control groups, but none of them were statistically significant.
Conclusions: It seems that both groups were benefiting from the chewing gum interventions. The study-associated improved oral hygiene in both groups might explain the significant reduction in the determined bacteria.
Acknowledgements: This study was supported by the Kuwait University grants DD02/10, GD01/11, SRUL02/13. This study was registered in clinical trials.gov with ID: NCT0528969.