Measure salivary flow and pH and determined its association withdental caries in young adults.
Method:
Two hundred and twenty seven students from the Faculty of Dentistry (UCV), between 18 and 25 year of age, were examined and the DMFS, salivary flow rate (SFR) and salivary pH determined. The stimulated SFR was measured by stimulating with parafilm paper for 5 minutes and the pH measured using an Orion pH electrode. The clinical examination was carried out using the criteria proposed by Radike (1972) and modified by Acevedo et al., (2005). A new modification to the Radike criteria was added which included the scoring of non-cavitated caries lesions. The associations between the different parameters were performed using Pearson Correlation.
Result:
The caries prevalence was 91% with a mean DMFS of 9.46±8.60; however, the 93.2% of thesurfaces evaluated were caries free, 2.8%caries-affected, 0.08% missed and 3.80% filled. The 69.3% of the lesions detected were non-cavitated and 30.7% showed micro-cavities. In relation to the salivary parameters, the mean SFR was1.35±0.61 and pH 7.29±0.61. No statistical difference was observed when this variables were compared by Gender (p=0.07 for the SFR and p=0.24 for pH). No correlation was observed between the salivary parameters and the caries index with r2 values of 0.0553 and 0.0458.
Conclusion:
The results indicate a high caries risk population, suggesting that the evaluated salivary parameters by itself are not enough to overcome the caries challenged in this population. Therefore, other factor such diet could be determining the high caries prevalence in this population. More research has to be done.