Effect of gender, day and nighl use of complete denture on oral candidal growth

Background: Poor prosthetic hygiene is related with high level of oral candidal infection and many factors are being evaluated as its risk factors

Objective: The objective of present study was to determine whether gender and overnight denture wearing affects oral Candidal growth. Setting: Department of Prosthodontics, Lahore Medical and Dental College and Pathology Department, Microbiology Section of Lahore Medical and Dental College, Lahore

Patients and Methods: Forty edentulous patients including 20 male and 20 females, who fulfilled the inclusion criteria i.e. first time complete denture wearer between 50 to 65 years of age were included in this cross-sectional study. Exclusion Criteria: Patients with history of treatment with chemotherapy or radiotherapy in past six months, smokers and diabetic were excluded from the study. Oral rinse on same time a day technique was used for sample collection in which patient was provided 10 ml of sterile saline in a sterile disposable container and requested to rinse for 60 sec. It was sent to Microbiology section of Pathology Department, Lahore Medical and Dental College, Lahore. Qualitative and quantitative growth of Candida was studied. Microscopy, Gram stain and colony count was done

Results: Difference in candidal growth was significantly higher after one month of wearing complete denture in females. Results showed that overnight denture wearing caused a higher candidal growth

Conclusion: General population and specially, females should be given the awareness that their oral hygiene is important and dentures should be taken off at night, as they do with their eyeglasses. This will prevent denture stomatitis

Anti bacterial activity of Nigella sativa against clinical isolates of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus [MRSA] continues to be one of the commonest pathogens encountered in clinical as well as laboratory practice. It has become a major health problem worldwide. Newer antimicrobials/agents are urgently needed to combat this problem MRSA resistance to various anti-staphylococcal agents. In the back-drop of this difficult situation Nigella sativa commonly known as black seed [ethanolic extract] was aimed at to evaluate if it had any anti-staphylococcal activity. The extract was prepared by reflux extraction method. Disc diffusion and in agar dilution methods were performed to assess the antibacterial activity. Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923 was used as the standard reference strain. All tested strains of MRSA were sensitive to N. sativa extract at a concentration of 4 mg/disc while the extract had an MIC range of 0.2-0.5 mg/ml. The results indicated that N. sativa has inhibitory effect on MRSA. This finding warrants necessity of further investigation of this product of folk medicine

Rapid isolation of mycobacteria-need of the hour in our settings

To compare Bactec MGIT 960 with LJ media in terms of time taken for the initial isolation of mycobacteria. A total of 100 AFB [acid fast bacillus] positive sputum samples were processed and inoculated in both the Lowenstein Jensen [LJ] media and mycobacterium growth indicator tube [MGIT] tubes. Of the 100 samples, positive growth was obtained from all the samples on both the MGIT and LJ media. In MGIT 53% samples grew in 4 days, 30% in 5 days and 17% in 6 days [Mean=4.6 days] while on LJ media, 44% grew in 30 days, 20% in 35 days and 36% in 44 days [Mean=37 days]. Significant difference was observed between two systems with a p-value of less than 0.05. Bactec MGIT 960 is a much faster and efficient system for the initial isolation of mycobacteria