Urinary catecholamine levels and dentofacial injuries in children.

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between urinary catecholamine levels and dentofacial injuries in 221 children, boys and girls, aged 8 to 10 years. Dentofacial injuries were recorded by a questionnaire and a clinical examination. Three 24-h urine samples, taken with an interval of 1 year between each, were available for each subject. A representative urine sample from each examination was analyzed by the high-performance liquid chromatography technique to assay the catecholamine content. Socioeconomic factors were recorded by a questionnaire. Of the examined children 58 (24 boys and 34 girls) with complete 24-h urine samples showed neither historical nor clinical evidence of dentofacial injuries and constituted the control group. Two case groups, A and B, with historical and/or clinical evidence of dentofacial injuries were matched by age and gender. Differences in the quantitative and qualitative data were tested by the paired t-test and the chi 2 test, respectively, while a regression analysis was applied to measure the effects of norepinephrine on epinephrine and dopamine. The 95% probability level was used. The results showed significant differences between control and case group A in the epinephrine and norepinephrine levels of the second urine sample. Significant differences were also found between control and case group B at the first urine sample in epinephrine and dopamine and at the second in epinephrine. Injured boys had significantly higher values of all catecholamines except for epinephrine in the second urine sample than injured girls. The only significant difference found between boys and girls without dentofacial injuries was in norepinephrine in the second urine sample. The data suggested that children with dentofacial injuries are more frequently under emotional stress and consequently emotionally stressful children run a greater risk of sustaining such injuries.