Assessment Of Oral Candida Carrier Status In A Dental Hospital.

Seema Patil; Asha R Iyengar; Sonali Ghai Choudhury; Subash B Vasudeva; Sankarsan Choudhury

Volume : V, Issue : VII, July - 2015

Assessment Of Oral Candida Carrier Status In A Dental Hospital.

Seema Patil, Asha R Iyengar, Sonali Ghai Choudhury, Subash B Vasudeva, Sankarsan Choudhury

Abstract :

The present study aimed to assess the candidal carriage status amongst patients visiting the dental outpatient department particularly in subjects with hypertension, hypothyroidism, tobacco habits and blood group secretor status. A total of 191 subjects were selected for the study and grouped into four categories based on tobacco habits, medically compromised conditions (diabetes, onchial asthma, hypertension, and hypothyroidism) potentially malignant conditions and denture wearers. The fifth group included subjects who had a combination of any of the above. Cytological smears were obtained from the oral cavity in all subjects and examined for candidal hyphae. Based on the candidal load, a candidal carriage score was assigned for each subject. This was followed by the calculation of mean candidal carriage score (MCCS) for each group. It was noted that subjects in fifth group (subjects with multiple predisposing factors) had the highest MCCS(1.47). Amongst subjects with a single predisposing factor, denture wearers had the highest MCCS(1.31) followed by medically compromised conditions(1.21 ). Subjects with tobacco habits and potentially malignant conditions had a lower MCCS(0.91 ). The difference between the five groups was found to be statistically significant (p value – 0.0066). Individuals with Blood group O had higher MCCS although the difference was not statistically significant . It may be inferred from the present study that hypertension, hypothyroidism, tobacco habits and blood group secretor status donot influence the candidal carriage status to a large extent.