Effect of anti-asthmatic drugs on dental health: A comparative study.
OBJECTIVE
Bronchial asthma constitutes important problem worldwide. This chronic lung disease has detrimental effect in the oral cavity like reduction of salivary secretion, change in salivary composition and pH.


METHODS
This study was conducted to compare the prevalence of dental caries in asthmatic children and healthy children, and also to evaluate the correlation between theStreptococcus mutans,Lactobacillusand dental caries in both the groups.


RESULTS
In this study, the mean decayed, missing, filled teeth score of children in the study group was (4.53 ± 3.38) higher than the control group (1.51 ± 1.58) (P< 0.01). TheS. mutanscount of the study group was (59574.47 ± 28510.67) higher than the control group (19777.78 ± 17899.83)P< 0.01. TheLactobacilluscount in study group was (43553.19 ± 58776.96) higher than the control group (8843.84 ± 7982.72)P< 0.01. Subjects using inhaled corticosteroids were more prone to develop dental caries than the control group with odds ratio = 6.26 and 95% confidence interval.


CONCLUSIONS
The dental caries prevalence increases with the usage of β2agonist and corticosteroid inhalers for the treatment of asthma. Thus in asthmatic children, increase in caries prevalence might be due to the drug treatment and not due to the disease by itself. It can be concluded that asthmatic children have a higher prevalence of dental caries than healthy children. Hence, special oral health care is needed for asthmatic children.
Department of Paedodontics and Preventive Dentistry, Sree Mookambika Institute of Dental Sciences, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India.
P
P
Chellaih
Department of Paedodontics and Preventive Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology University, Kedah, Malaysia.
G
G
Sivadas
Department of Paedodontics and Preventive Dentistry, Sree Mookambika Institute of Dental Sciences, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India.
S
S
Chintu
Department of Oral Pathology, Faculty of Dentistry, Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology University, Kedah, Malaysia.
V K
VK
Vaishnavi Vedam
Department of Periodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology University, Kedah, Malaysia.
Rajeev
R
Arunachalam
Department of Pediatrics, Sree Mookambika Institute of Medical Sciences, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India.
M
M
Sarsu
Anti-asthmatic drugs; Lactobacillus; Streptococcus; dental caries