Aim: The aim of the study was to evaluate the dental caries experience of children suffering from bronchial asthma.
Methods: During the year 1998 a clinical dental examination was conducted in the northern part of Poland on children aged 3-15 years who had chronic bronchial asthma. The control group comprised 326 generally healthy children matched for age, sex and socioeconomic status. Both the controls and those with bronchial asthma underwent an assessment of their oral health condition measuring caries experience in both primary and permanent teeth using dmft/DMFT.
Results: At the ages of 10, 11 and 12 years a statistically significant higher average dmft values were observed in the children suffering from bronchial asthma as compared with their peers in the control group. In permanent dentition, the DMFT figures were significantly higher at 13 years of age with a value of 6.76 observed in asthmatic subjects compared with 5.06 in the controls.
Conclusion: Children suffering from bronchial asthma appear to be at higher caries risk and should be provided with particularly intensive preventive dental programmes.