Oral health trends of asthmatic preschoolers
A recent study investigated the oral health of 3 and 6-year old children who suffered from asthma. Results showed that these children had a higher caries prevalence than children without the condition. Dental Learning Hub put some questions to Dr Malin Stensson from the department of paediatric dentistry at the Institute for Postgraduate Dental Education in Jönköping, Sweden.
Dental Learning Hub: What is the background of this study?
Malin Stensson: Asthma is one of the most common medical conditions in childhood but only a limited number of studies have investigated the oral health in pre-school children with asthma. The results are somewhat conflicting, some authors reported a correlation between asthma and oral health and others find no such correlation. The diverging reported result of earlier studies of asthmatic pre-school children could be explained by differences in asthma severity or medications, small samples and inconsistent age-groups. The aim of the present study was therefore to study oral health and its determinants in 3 and 6 year old Swedish children with and without asthma
Dental Learning Hub: What were the most significant findings your of research?
Malin Stensson: The most significant findings of our research were that pre-school children with asthma have a higher caries prevalence than healthy children. Discriminating factors for caries in asthmatic children where higher intake of sugar-containing drinks, gingivitis, frequent mouthbreathing and immigrant background (factors were only significant for the 3-year olds, but the tendency is the same in the 6-year olds).
Dental Learning Hub: Why did the children with asthma have a higher consumption of high-sugar drinks?
Malin Stensson: Parents of the asthmatic children reported a higher frequency of mouthbreathing, which could be explained by higher intake of sugar-containing drinks.
Dental Learning Hub: How do you hope the outcomes of your study will impact on approaches in paediatric dentistry in the future?
Malin Stensson: One of our aim with the study was to develop a preventive dental programmes for pre-school children with asthma.
Dental Learning Hub: Will you be conducting any further research in this area?
Malin Stensson: We are working with a follow-up study including the 3-year old children who participated in the present paper Oral health in preschool children with asthma. We are also working with a study that investigates the oral health in 14-16 year old children with severe and very severe asthma.
International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry, Volume 18 Issue 4 Page 243-250, July 2008
Authors: Malin Stensson, Lill-Kari Wendt, Göran Koch, Göran Oldaeus, Dowen Birkhed
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