Quantitative relationship between salivary level of Streptococcus mutans and Candida albicans in children with Down's syndrome.
OBJECTIVE
The actual work intends to establish a correlation between quantitative counts for Streptococcus mutans and Candida albicans in the saliva of patients with Down syndrome (DS), and in mentally deficient (MD) patients, with respect to a normal group (C ).


METHODS
This study was performed in 166 children (49 DS, 60MD and 57C), whose saliva samples were grown on TYCSB agar and Sabouraud agar. Subsequently, microbiological analysis, scanning electron microscopy and aggregation assays were made. The results were statistically evaluated using the variance analysis (ANOVA) and the Student "t" test for unpaired data.


RESULTS
A correlation of 0.45 was found for group C, 0.55 in DS patients and 0.37 in MD patients, when comparing counts of S. mutans and C. albicans in saliva. Scanning electron microscopy analysis showed coaggregation between S. mutans and C. albicans and this was confirmed by in vitro experiments of S. mutans and C. albicans made on nitrocellulose filters.


CONCLUSIONS
This kind of association between bacteria and fungi contributes to justify a pathogenic synergy among several microorganisms, as well as some infectious local or systemic manifestations, depending on the immunity status of the patient.
Servicio de Odontologia y Cirugia Maxilofacial, Escuela de Medicina Pontificia y Catolica de la Universidad de Chile, Chile. 13598eck@comb.es
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001422:Bacterial Adhesion; D002176:Candida albicans / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004314:Down Syndrome / Q000382:microbiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000382:microbiology*; D008297:Male; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D012463:Saliva / Q000382:microbiology*; D013295:Streptococcus mutans / Q000302:isolation & purification*