[Incidence of dental caries in children with bronchial asthma]

To assess whether in children with asthma dental caries occurs more frequently and is more advanced than in healthy children of the same age.

The investigations were carried out in 64 patients suffering from asthma aged from 8 to 16 years. The control group consisted of 64 healthy children. The medium period of duration of the illness is 10 years and the mean time of treatment is 7 years. The clinical examination of the mouth was carried out in accordance with WHO guidelines. The results were analyzed taking into account the division of patients into 2 subgroups: with mixed and permanent dentition. Statistical analysis was performed using StatSoft's Statistica 7.0 software, using the Mann-Whitney U and Fisher test.

In the subgroup of permanent dentition the frequency of decay was 87.80% in asthmatics and 82.92% in the control group (no statistical significance p>0.05), and caries intensity was 6.0 and 4.9 respectively. Statistical analysis showed a significant difference in the intensity of caries between the total two groups of patients examined (p=0.02) and between the groups of girls in this subgroup (p=0.00). In the subgroup with mixed dentition, there was no statistically significant difference in the frequency and the intensity of caries between patients and the control s (p>0.05).

Permanent teeth caries is more severe in children with asthma than in the control group. These patients must be considered as high caries risk and should have special dental care.