Oral health assessment in children aging 8–15 years with bronchial asthma using inhalation medication

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present study was to evaluate and compare oral health status of bronchial asthma patients between the age group of 8–15 years with healthy individuals and examines the relationship between the severity of asthma, dose duration, method of taking medication, and use of AeroChamber on the dental health of children diagnosed with asthma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present cross-sectional study assessed the oral status of asthmatic patients and compared with a control group of 200 nonasthmatic patients. Both groups were matched in relation to age and gender. The oral health was assessed by measuring oral hygiene, caries status, periodontal health, and candidiasis of participants. Oral hygiene was measured by plaque index, caries assessment was done with the decayed missing filled teeth index/decayed extracted filled (DMFT/def index) and the periodontal status was measured with community periodontal index (CPI) adapted from the WHO (1997). RESULTS: Plaque index score among asthmatics group was 1.49 ± 0.65 was significantly higher than healthy group 1.08 ± 0.57. The significant difference was noted in the mean caries (DMFT/def) score for asthmatic patients (2.31 ± 1.65/1.02 ± 0.39) and the controls (1.98 ± 1.54/0.74 ± 0.39). The CPI score was also significantly high in asthmatics (3.19 ± 1.68) in comparison to healthy individuals (2.32 ± 2.07). The candidiasis was absent in healthy individuals while it was present among 28 patients in the asthmatic group. The patients who were taking medication from longer period of time (9–12 months) had significantly worse oral health. The study result did not show any significant difference with the type of inhalation. However it showed significantly improved oral health for patients using AeroChamber in comparison to the patients not using it. CONCLUSION: Oral health was significantly poor in asthmatic patients in comparison with the healthy individuals. Increased frequency of asthma medication use was associated with increased likelihood of poor oral health. Use of AeroChamber improves the oral health of patients.