[Dental students' competencies in community dentistry course]

Graduated dentistry students ought to be competent in different fields of community dentistry such as health education, needs assessment, planning and policy making. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of community dentistry course on dental students' competencies in different fields of community dentistry through self-monitoring method in Isfahan School of dentistry. This quasi-experimental study was conducted on two groups using pre-test and post-test. Through census sampling method, 50 students were studied before and after passing the community dentistry course, as experiment group and 40 students who did not pass this course were studied as the control group at the time of graduation. The data gathering tool was a questionnaire which was completed by students as self-administered. The questionnaire assessed students' competencies in 6 determined areas with a scale ranging from unacceptable to excellent. The results were analyzed by SPSS software using Paired t-test and t-test. The difference between the scores of experiment group's competencies in all six determined areas was significant, before and after passing the course. Comparing the scores of the experiment and control groups showed significant differences in all areas except in "preventive dentistry services". Community dentistry course has been successful in making the students competent in community dentistry fields. In order to improve these results, it is recommended to devote more time and facilities to the subjects such as needs assessment and course planning

Immunohistochemical evaluation of estrogen and progesterone receptors in peripheral and central giant cell granuloma of the jaws

Giant cell granuloma is a relatively common benign proliferative lesion of the oral cavity. This lesion has a marked gender predilection with more prevalence in females apd tendency to rapid growth and recurrence during pregnancy. The aim of this study was the evaluation of specific receptors of sex hormones in giant cell granuloma. In this cross-sectional study, twenty five cases of formalin fixed paraffin embedded giant cell granulomas were retrieved from the oral pathology archive of dental school Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. Also twenty five normal oral mucosa biopsies resected during different surgical procedures were prepared as control group. Cases were immunohistochemically stained for estrogen and progesterone receptors using the biotin-streptavidine method. Data were analyzed by SPSS package. Staining for ER/PR markers were negative for the mononuclear stromal cells and multinucleated giant cells in all cases. The epithelial cells and connective tissue stromal cells of the control group were also negative for these receptors. Based on the results of this study, immunostaining for ER/PR was negative in all cases. These findings suggest that in most cases development and growth of this lesion is not directly related to these hormones. However further studies with more sensitive techniques are recommended