Oral Health-Related Quality of Life in Anticoagulated Patients with Warfarin Treatment: A Cross-Sectional Study.

To evaluate factors associated with oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) in patients under oral anticoagulant therapy with warfarin, a cross-sectional study was conducted. Validated questionnaires assessed self-reported periodontal disease, demographic variables, and OHRQoL using the short version of the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14) instrument. After calibration (Kappa > 0.60), an examiner evaluated patients' experience with dental caries and the need for dental prostheses. Statistical analysis involved proportions and measures of central tendency. Negative binomial regression models were used to estimate the rate ratios (RR) and the corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI). The sample consisted of 158 individuals, with a mean age of 58.8 years (SD = 12.1), of which 62.7% of the participants were women. The OHIP-14 mean was 10.62 (SD = 10.92). A higher OHIP-14 total score (worse OHRQoL) was associated with ethnic group, age, periodontal disease self-report, dental caries, and oral health self-report. Demographic and clinical factors can negatively influence the perception of anticoagulated patients on OHRQoL.

Risk factors associated with reported bruxism among children and adolescents with Down Syndrome.

Objective: Identify factors associated with the prevalence of reported bruxism in children/adolescents with Down Syndrome (DS). Methods: The study included 112 children/adolescents with DS and their parents/caregivers. Oral habits, pacifier/finger sucking, upper respiratory infections (

A survey of dental journal methodological practices: Reporting guidelines and ethical policies.

BACKGROUND: The authors evaluated instructions for author norms among existing dental journals and analyzed whether these journals address the practice of reporting guidelines and ethics policies. METHODS: The authors evaluated 87 journals indexed in Journal Citation Reports (Thomson Reuters). The authors extracted information regarding the journals from the Journal Citation Reports database and from the instructions for authors of each journal. The authors conducted bivariate analysis to compare the methodological policy issues of journals with higher and those with lower impact factors (≥ 1.452 and ≤ 1.436, respectively). RESULTS: Among journals, 44 (50.6%) required the use of Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials, 22 (25.3%) Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, 21 (24.1%) Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments, 17 (19.5%) STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational Studies in Epidemiology, 6 (6.9%) Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies, 3 (3.4%) Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology, and 1 (1.1%) Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials. No journals required STrengthening the REporting of Genetic Association Studies. Journals with higher impact factors had more instructions related to the peer review process (P = .027), redundant publication (P < .001), authorship policy (P = .024), contributorship policy (P < .001), ethical conduct of biomedical research with human participants (P = .021), ethical conduct of biomedical research with nonhuman participants (P = .001), registration of clinical trials (P = .004), and conflicts involving editors as authors in their own journals (P < .001) than did journals with lower impact factors. The submission of clinical case studies was significantly more prevalent in journals with lower impact factors (P = .008). CONCLUSIONS: Journals with higher impact factors have more rules regarding publication policies. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Journals with higher impact factors are stricter regarding publication policies than are journals with lower impact factors. Authors should be careful with the instructions for authors and plan studies with high methodological quality to publish their studies in a scientific journal.

Oral health of children and adolescents with mucopolysaccharidosis and mother's Sense of Coherence.

AIMS: The purpose of this study is assess the association between mother's Sense of Coherence (SOC) and the oral health status of children with and without mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS). METHODS: A cross-sectional study was carried out with 29 children/adolescents with MPS and 29 children/adolescents without MPS, and their mothers in Brazil. Mothers completed the Antonovsky's SOC instrument (SOC-13) and their children's oral cavity had been examined for developmental defects of enamel (DDE), occlusal problems, dental caries (DMFT/dmft) and oral hygiene. This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. RESULTS: Mothers of children with MPS had lower SOC scores (mean: 33.3 [±4.0]) compared with mothers of children without MPS (mean: 36.9 [±4.5]) (p < 0.001). Mother's SOC of children with MPS were lower for those children with one or more decayed teeth (31.5 [±3.2]) than for those children/adolescents without caries (35.7 [±3.8]) (p = 0.004) and lower for those children/adolescents with one or more missing teeth (30.2 [±0.9]) than for those individuals identified without missing teeth (33.8 [±4.1]) (p = 0.046). CONCLUSION: Mothers' SOC of children/adolescents with MPS was associated with dental caries experience in their children. Improving mothers' SOC should contribute to a better quality of life for their children.

Time elapsed between the first symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of oral cancer patients in Belo Horizonte, Brazil

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One of the most important objectives of a public health service is early diagnosis of disease, which provides a better prognosis and reduction in treatment cost. We investigated the delay for diagnosis and treatment of oral cancer in a public hospital.Material and methods:One hundred eighty records of patients who attended for their first consultation in the department of head and neck surgery in a public hospital from Belo Horizonte–Brazil, between the period from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2001 were analysed. The following variables were analyzed: gender, age, evolution time (ET), time elapsed from referral to hospital and first appointment (RT), time elapsed from first appointment and treatment (TT), total time elapsed from first noticing the lesion and starting treatment (TTE), sites and staging.Results:Results for males and females were, respectively: mean age = 57.9 and 60.8 years; ET= 169.4 and 215.4 days; RT = 27.9 and 40.6 days; TT = 40.9 and 44.9days; TTE = 207.9 and 263.8 days. No correlation was observed between age and TTE for either gender. Women presented the highest mean values for ET and TTE (p<0.01).Conclusion:It was concluded that public health policy should be developed to address the excessively long time lapsed between diagnosis and treatment as well as improve public health education programs to promote early oral cancer identification (AU)

A random clinical trial study to assess the efficiency of topical applications of podophyllin resin (25%) versus podophyllin resin (25%) together with acyclovir cream (5%) in the treatment of oral hairy leukoplakia.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to assess the efficiency of topical applications of podophyllin resin (25%) (P) versus podophyllin resin (25%) together with acyclovir cream (5%) (PA) in the treatment of oral hairy leukoplakia (OHL) in accordance with the following criteria: (1) number of applications necessary for the total clinical resolution of OHL; (2) correlation between the decrease of lesion size and the number of applications; (3) total clinical resolution of OHL; and (4) clinical reevaluation 12 months after the end of treatment. STUDY DESIGN: Forty-six OHLs were treated with P (P group) or with PA (PA group). Applications were performed weekly. Student t, Fisher exact, and Pearson correlation tests were used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: All 24 lesions from the PA group presented total clinical resolution while 4 lesions from the P group did not. The P group required up to 25 applications performed weekly while the PA group required up to 18. Observed was a negative significant association between the size of the lesions and the number of applications performed weekly in the PA group. CONCLUSIONS: The present study demonstrated the following: (1) P and PA topical treatments presented a similar average number of applications performed weekly; (2) both groups showed the same clinical response at 12 months post-therapy; and (3) PA presented a 100% clinical resolution and a continuous decrease in OHL size over the course of weekly applications.