Year : 2022

Volume : Volume 13

Issue : Issue 6

Address for correspondence :
Bhardwaj Abhishek
abhishekbhardwaj488@gmail.com

Abstract

Dental caries is a highly prevalent infectious disease that causes tooth decay with the reported prevalence of 51.9% in 5-year-old children to as high as 85.0%. The study comprised total of 150 young children with deciduous dentition with no history of drug therapy 3 months before saliva sampling, systemic disease, and active orthodontic treatment reported in the Outpatient Department of Triveni Institute of Dental Sciences, Bilaspur. Caries was diagnosed using the Decayed, Missing due to caries, Filled Teeth and Decayed, Missing due to caries, and Filled tooth Surfaces (DMFS) scores. Sample of saliva was taken through stimulating salivary gland by chewing paraffin stimulated saliva and collected in a cotton swab and assessed for the quantitation of Streptococci, Lactobacilli, and Actinomyces in among three groups. These bacteria were cultured on Mitis salivarius HiVeg agar base, Actinomyces agar, and Rogosa SL HiVegTM agar broth, respectively, for streptococcus, Actinomyces, and Lactobacillus, respectively. There was highly significant difference in mean Streptococci count between the three groups (P = 0.001). The Tukeys post hoc test showed highly significant difference (P = 0.001) between all the groups. Within the limitation of the study, it can be concluded that higher mean microbial count was observed in individuals with multiple caries, than individuals with single caries and was least in the control group; the Streptococcal and Lactobacilli count was found to be higher in the subjects with rampant caries as compared to subjects with single caries lesion while the Actinomyces count was significantly higher in caries free individual as compared to subjects with caries.

Keywords: Dental caries, Rampant caries, Saliva.