Salivary Streptococcus mutans, Lactobacilli levels and buffer capacity in children with esophageal burns

Children with esophageal burns due to toxic ingestion are medically compromised in many ways. They have problems like strictures in esophagus, dysphagia, gastroesophageal reflux and necessity to be fed with a special soft diet. Taking these distinctive features into consideration, we aimed to study these children with special focus on the dental caries risk. The experimental group consisted of 33 children between 2 and 14 years old (mean age 6.42 +/- 0.56) who had received stricture treatment in the Pediatric Surgery Department of our university. The control group consisted of 20 healthy children aged between 3 and 14 (mean age 7.25 +/- 0.7) who applied to the Pedodontics department for dental treatment. While mean dfs (+/- SE) was 11.13 +/- 2.30 and mean DMFs (+/- SE) was 9.79 +/- 4.76 in the experimental group, mean dfs (+/- SE) was found as 11.53 +/- 2.16 and mean DMFS (+/- SE) was 1.90 +/- 0.56 in control group. For the determination of Streptococcus mutans (SM), Lactobacilli (LB) and Buffer capacity (BC), salivary tests of Dentocult SM (Vivacult SM Vivadent-Liechtenstein), Dentocult LB (Vivacult LB-Vivadent-Liechtenstein) and Dentobuff (Vivacult BC-Vivadent-Liechtenstein) were applied to both groups. Our findings were evaluated statistically and compared by the Mann Whitney Confidence Test. The amount of Streptococcus mutans, Lactobacilli and the level of buffering capacity in the children with esophageal burns showed a high caries risk. Positive correlations were found between SM and LB, SM and dfs, LB and dfs levels and DMFs and duration of stricture treatment (p < 0.05). However, negative correlations were found between BC and DMFs, DMFs and tooth brushing habit, dental visit and DMFs (p < 0.05). The mean DMFs, LB and SM levels were lower and BC levels were higher in the control group. Although a significant difference was found between DMFs scores (p < 0.05), no significant difference was found between LB, BC, SM and dfs levels (p > 0.05). It could be concluded that children with esophageal burns have high dental caries risk and for this reason parental counseling about oral hygiene, diet, dental plaque controlling and preventive dental regimens have an importance in these medically compromised children.