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Abstract
Orthodontic therapy in the United States has become routine among teenagers and increasing among adults. Despite these positive developments, orthodontic treatment has often been associated with changes to the oral environment, which may increase disease risk. Although numerous studies have demonstrated the causal link between Streptococcus mutans and carious lesions, more recent evidence suggest that it only constitutes part of a much larger oral microbial community. Several recent studies have demonstrated the presence of newly characterized cariogenic pathogen, the anaerobic Gram-positive bacillus Scardovia wiggsiae. This retrospective study of previously collected saliva samples originated with a convenience sample of pediatric and adult patients, previously recruited from the University of Nevada Las Vegas-School of Dental Medicine (UNLV-SDM) clinics. More than one hundred saliva samples from adult orthodontic (n=49) and non-orthodontic (n=52) patients were selected for inclusion in this study. All DNA extracted from these samples was subsequently screened using PCR, which revealed the presence of S. mutans (SM), P. gingivalis (PG), and S. wiggsiae (SW), which differed in prevalence among non-Orthodontic and Orthodontic patients. In non-orthodontic patients nearly all of the PG-positive and SW-positive samples were also SM-positive samples. However, among orthodontic patients, none of the SW-positive samples were either SM- or PG-positive. In addition, further analysis of demographic variables revealed decayed-missing-filled teeth (DMFT) score, periodontal pocket depth (PPD), age, gender, and BMI did not vary between groups, which suggest continued research in this area will be needed to elucidate these findings.
Highlights
Orthodontic therapy has become routine, with approximately 1% of all young adults and nearly 20% of all teenagers undergoing some form of orthodontic treatment at any given time in the United States [1,2]
All DNA extracted from these samples was subsequently screened using Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which revealed the presence of S. mutans (SM), P. gingivalis (PG), and S. wiggsiae (SW), which differed in prevalence among non-Orthodontic and Orthodontic patients (Figure 1)
The goal of this study was to screen saliva from adult orthodontic patients to evaluate the prevalence of SW for comparison with a group of adult patients without orthodontic appliances
Summary
Orthodontic therapy has become routine, with approximately 1% of all young adults (under 30 years of age) and nearly 20% of all teenagers undergoing some form of orthodontic treatment at any given time in the United States [1,2] Despite these impressive advances in the prevalence of orthodontic treatment in the US, many disparities remain to improve access for the underserved, including minorities, underinsured and uninsured [3,4,5]. Many orthodontic and other dental specialty programs are actively seeking low income, minority and underserved populations in an effort to improve access to oral healthcare, but to facilitate increased oral health awareness, education and other resources [6,7,8] Despite these positive developments and the incremental steps towards improved access, orthodontic treatment has often been associated with changes to the oral mucosa, gingiva and microbial communities, which may increase disease risk [9,10]. This research group has facilitated several studies of oral health among minorities and under-served within the pediatric, adult and orthodontic populations over the past few years that clearly demonstrate these patients may be at increased risk for oral complications due to barriers to access, lower levels of health literacy, lowered access to preventive dental care, and increased burden of cariogenic, periodontal and other oral pathogens [6,7,14,15,16]
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