Cariogram and Oratest in Caries Risk Assessment for School Children

Aims and objectives: The present study was carried out to evaluate the correlation between Cariogram and Oratest in caries risk assessment among school children. Materials and Methods: A clinical diagnostic trial including 240 healthy school children using Cariogram and Oratest to predict the dental caries risk for each individual. The data required for Cariogram construction (diet contents and frequency, the related general diseases, the use of fluoridated toothpaste, tooth brushing and other fluoride supplements, past dental history and dental plaque scores) were collected by dietary questionnaire, interview and clinical examination. Oratest was carried out for the same patients after performing the Cariogram. The analysis of collected data was performed using SPSS version 22 software program. The p-values ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: There were statistically significant differences for all risk factors and Oratest scores between low and high caries risk individuals classified by Cariogram. A highly significant positive correlation between the green sector of Cariogram (chance of avoiding development of caries in future) and Oratest scores, highly significant negative correlations between both Cariogram and Oratest and dental caries status were found. Children with Oratest time less than 64.43 minutes are at high caries risk. Conclusion: The present study indicated that Oratest has a definite clinical relationship with the green sector of Cariogram of each individual and can be used as a separate test for predicting caries susceptibility. Wahdan M. Elkwatehy1* and Rabab I Salama2 1Lecturer of Dental Public Health, Faculty of dentistry, Mansoura University, Egypt 2Assistant professor of Dental Public Health, Faculty of dentistry, Mansoura University, Egypt *Address for Correspondence Wahdan M. Elkwatehy, Faculty of Dentistry, Department of Public Health and Preventive Dentistry, Mansoura University, Egypt, Tel: 00201000993389; E-mail: wahdanelkwatehy@yahoo.com Submission: 19 April, 2018 Accepted: 21 May, 2018 Published: 31 May, 2018 Copyright: © 2018 Elkwatehy WM, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Research Article Open Access Journal of Oral Biology Introduction Dental caries has a multi factorial etiology, host including saliva and teeth, the microflora or biofilm, the substrate as diet and time. The modifiable risk factors can be modified and amenable to intervention. Whereas, the non-modifiable risk factors are quite challenging to health care professionals [1]. Understanding caries etiology and its progression is very important for planning preventive programs for dental caries and this has been made easy with concomitant advances in science and technology [2,3]. Dental caries risk model is used when it is important to identify one or more risk factors for the disease so that likely points for intervention can be planned. A prediction model, on the contrary, is used when one is mainly interested in identifying who is at high risk. The main goal is to maximize sensitivity and specificity of the prediction, so that any good predictor may be included in the model. A challenge for the biological factor approach is to correctly summarize the complex picture of the various inter-related caries risk factors, so that it can easily be used by the dental professional routinely in the dental clinics [4,5]. The concept of prediction of human dental caries risk has existed for many years, particularly, during the past twenty years where the Avens Publishing Group Inviting Innovations J Oral Biol May 2018 Volume 5 Issue 1 © All rights are reserved by Elkwatehy, et al. Avens Publishing Group Inviting Innovations interest in this issue has been increased. This appears to reflect recent advances in the knowledge of the etiology of dental caries, thus the caries prediction will be more accurate and depend on certain specific risk factors or their combinations. The desire to prevent rather than to treat dental caries should be take the priority of dental health care workers but at the same time the increasing need of cost should be understood and put in their consideration [6,7]. The Oratest is a potential whole mouth diagnostic test to measure microbial load in intraoral diseases of epidemiological importance like periodontal disease and caries. It can be used as a simple, inexpensive and rapid technique for assessing caries activity since a significant relationship exists clinically with caries status and microbiologically with the streptococcus mutans count of the individual [8,9]. It has been hypothesized that Oratest is based on the rate of oxygen depletion by micro-organisms. Under aerobic conditions the bacterial enzyme; aerobic dehydrogenase transfers electrons or protons to oxygen. Once oxygen gets utilized by the aerobic organisms and an anaerobic environment is attained, methylene blue (redox indicator) acts as an electron acceptor and gets reduced to leukomethylene blue. The metabolic activity of the aerobic microorganism is reflected by the reduction of methylene blue to leukomethylene blue [10]. Caries risk assessment has moved from depend on individual risk factor to an approach in which all risk factors are weighted based on the putative role they play in the etiology of the dental disease [11,12]. Among the caries risk prediction models available is the cariogram which graphically determine the chance of an individual avoiding caries in the near future [13,14]. Many studies indicated that, Cariogram was more accurate in predicting caries than any single factor and had shown promising results in predicting caries in children [15,16]. The lack of sufficient studies to evaluate the effectiveness of Oratest as a risk assessment test in comparison with a well approved caries risk assessment model is the main reason why this is not universally acceptable in spite of its advantages and potential, so the present study conducted to validate the effectiveness of this technique in relation to Cariogram for caries risk assessment. Citation: Elkwatehy WM, Salama RI. Cariogram and Oratest in Caries Risk Assessment for School Children. J Oral Biol. 2018; 5(1): 6 J Oral Biol 5(1): 6 (2018) Page 02 ISSN: 2377-987X