Evaluation of resting mouth salivary flow rate and dental caries In E-cigarette users.

Abstract

Introduction: Components of cigarette smoke are said to be amongst the first to affect the saliva and its production. Repeated exposure of tobacco smoke may result in functional changes of saliva.
Objective: To evaluate the effects of E-cigarette on resting mouth salivary flow rate and dental caries.
Methodology: This cross-sectional study conducted at Altamash institute of Dental
Medicine for a duration of six months from Feb’2019 to Sept’2019. Data was collected using a well-structured and validated questionnaire. SPSS 22 was used to analyze the data. A p-value ≤ 0.05 was taken as significant.
Results: The mean score of e-cigarettes consumption per day and Clinical Oral Dryness score was found to be 5.13±2.483 and 1.08±1.172 respectively, which indicates mild dryness amongst the participants. Furthermore, the mean unstimulated salivary flow rate in participants was 0.406±0.1027 ml/minute. It was also observed that 247(68.61%) participants had carious lesion in one or more teeth.
Conclusion: E-cigarettes cannot be considered as a safe substitute to traditional cigarette smoking and it can have detrimental effects on oral health just like other tobacco products as results indicated that participants had mild to moderate dryness and were prone to carious lesion with reduced salivary flow rate.
Keywords: Caries, Saliva, Smoking, Xerostomia.