Evaluation of two different remineralising toothpastes in children with drug-controlled asthma and allergic rhinitis: a randomised clinical trial.

AIM: To compare the efficacy of two remineralising toothpastes in children suffering from asthma and allergic rhinitis after a 6-month study. METHODS: 40 patients aged between 6-14 years with enamel demineralisations were enrolled for the study at the Unit of Dental Hygiene of the University of Pavia (Italy). The following indices were collected: Schiff air index (SAI), plaque index (PI), bleeding on probing (BoP), salivary pH, Basic Erosive Wear Examination (BEWE), susceptibility index (SI) for hard and soft tissues' pathologies, and decayed missing filled teeth (DMFT). After mechanical debridement with piezoelectric instrumentation and glycine powder, patients were equally divided into two groups: Group 1 using a toothpaste with zinc hydroxyapatite, and Group 2 using a toothpaste containing calcium sodium phosphosilicate. The toothpaste had to be used twice a day. The time frames of the study were: baseline (T0), after 1 month (T1), after 3 months (T2), after 6 months (T3). CONCLUSION: The tested toothpastes can be proposed for home use in children with asthma and allergic rhinitis as they significantly reduced dental sensitivity and periodontal indices.

Validation of the Italian version of the Stanford Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire for measuring functional status in children with chronic arthritis.

The Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire developed by Singh et al. to measure functional status in children with chronic arthritis (CHAQ) was translated into Italian (I-CHAQ), with minor modifications to obtain cross-cultural equivalence. This version was evaluated in a series of 96 patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA), both males and females ranging in age from 3 to 19 years (mean age 9.9 years). All three onset subtypes and all four classes of disability were represented in the sample. The questionnaire was filled in by the parents if the children were less than 8 years of age (23 cases), and by the children themselves in all other cases; a health professional was always present to provide assistance. As expected, JRA patients with a systemic or polyarticular disease onset had higher scores than those with a pauciarticular onset, and there were statistically significant differences in disability index values between patients from different Steinbrocker functional classes. The instrument showed good reproducibility in a test-retest over a two-week period, a high correlation between the child and parent scores, excellent internal reliability, and good convergent and discriminant validity.