title: [The reliability of the salivary occult blood to test gingival inflammation].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the reliability of salivary occult blood test(SOBT) for gingival inflammation.
  
  
  METHODS
  Forty-five pre- and post-stimulation saliva samples were tested for occult blood, with bleeding on probing (BOP) as an indicator of gingival inflammation. Subjects with BOP%<15% were defined as control group. The examinations were repeated 3 months after periodontal initial therapy. The relationship between the results of SOBT and gingival inflammation was analyzed. SAS6.12 software package was used for statistical analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The SOBT of pre-stimulation was higher in gingivitis group than in control group (P<0.05). BOP% and SOBT of post-therapy was significantly decreased (P<0.01), with 90% of pre- and 63% of post-stimulation SOBT turning negative. The sensitivity and specificity of pre- stimulation SOBT in screening gingivitis were 32.35% and 100%. The sensitivity and specificity of the post-stimulation SOBT were 88.24% and 81.82%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  SOBT is correlated with gingival inflammation, which may be used as an objective parameter to evaluate gingival inflammation and the efficacy of periodontal therapy at individual level. It may offer a simple screening method for gingival inflammation applied in periodontal epidemiologic studies in large population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Periodontology, Ninth People's Hospital, College of Stomatology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine; Shanghai Key Laboratory of Stomatology. Shanghai 200011, China.E-mail:jtujiani@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Jia-ni
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Yuan-zheng
authors.initials: YZ
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ding
mesh_terms: D005891:Gingivitis; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation; D009780:Occult Blood; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012463:Saliva