Clinical evaluation of resilient denture liners. Part 2: Candida count and speciation

The purpose of this study was to count and to speciate Candida isolated from 2 resilient denture liners, Molloplast-B and MPDS-SL.

A group of 20 patients each had 1 maxillary denture and 2 mandibular dentures fabricated. One mandibular denture was lined with Molloplast-B, and 1 was lined with MPDS-SL. Each denture was used for 3 months. At the end of the 3-month period, the mandibular denture was surrendered, and a 5 x 5-mm circular resilient liner sample was obtained from the tissue surface of the lingual flange. Samples were processed, and Candida was isolated and counted. Speciation of Candida was performed using CHROMagar Candida and API 20C AUX strips.

Molloplast-B had, on average, 5 times as many CFU/sample as MPDSL-SL, but this difference was not significant (p = 0.26). A sign test gave a similar nonsignificant trend (p = 0.057). CHROMagar identified several Candida species, and confirmation was made using API 20C AUX strips. One patient was lost to follow-up. Of 19 Molloplast-B samples, 7 had no growth, 4 grew C. albicans, 3 grew C. parapsilosis, 2 grew C. glabrata, 1 grew C. tropicalis, 2 grew a Trichosporon spp., and 2 grew a nonidentifiable colony. The analogous counts for 19 MPDS-SL samples were 10, 4, 1, 3, 0, 1, and 1 (p = 0.45 for culture positively, exact McNemar test).

Candida growth on Molloplast-B was not significantly different from growth on MPDS-SL. Several yeast species were cultured from each material. The rates of culture-positive testing did not differ between the 2 resilient denture liners.