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Updated: Oct 12, 2025
Oral Biofilm Sampling for Microbiome Analysis in Healthy Children
Published on: December 31, 2017
A clinical trial on topical effect of probiotics on oral Streptococcus mutans counts in children
Raju Umaji Patil1, Vedashri Prashant Nachan1, Sameer S Patil2
1Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Stes's Sinhgad Dental College and Hospital, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
Background:
Probiotics compete with the cariogenic oral bacteria like Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) for carbohydrates resulting in substrate depletion and reduction in the number of S. mutans.
Aim:
The evaluation of topical effect of short-term application of Probiotic formulation on S. mutans counts in plaque of 7-12 years old children with decayed, missing, filled teeth (dmft/DMFT) score 2-5.
Materials And Methods:
A registered randomized clinical trial (Clinical Trials Registry of India/ICMR - CTRI/2019/09/021205) was conducted on 7-12 years medium risk 10 children with dmft/DMFT score 2-5, where an innovative probiotic formulation (prepared from capsule) was applied for 6 consecutive days, on teeth and pre/post plaque samples were evaluated for S. mutans count on mitis salivarius agar.
Results:
There was statistically significant and drastic reduction from 608,200 to 6600 (>90%) in the S. mutans count in plaque after the application of probiotic solution for a short period of time (6 days).
Conclusion:
Short-term application of probiotics can be used as an alternate topical preventive therapy to reduce the count of S. mutans effectively in oral cavity/plaque. Hence, probiotic can be used as topical caries preventive agent.
