Evaluation of Buffering Capacity of Resting Saliva and Caries Prevalence for Caries Risk Assessment

Abstract

Saliva stimulated by chewing gum is often used as a sample in buffering capacity testing. However, cases are observed whereby the collectionof the stimulated saliva from young children, the disabled, and the elderly is difficult, and an investigation to establish a method for saliva collection is considered necessary. Although the testing of the buffering capacity using resting saliva or residual saliva in the oral cavity as samples is considered useful, 1 mL or more of saliva is used in the measurements, and the collection of this sample is seen to be difficult. Accordingly, it is desirable to measure buffering capacity by a small volume of resting saliva. Until now, there have been few epidemiological studies investigating the associationof the buffering capacity with caries prevalence ina large group inorder to verify the efficacy of this parameter for risk assessment on using a small amount of resting saliva. In this research, the usefulness was investigated by means of analyzing the relationship between the buffering capacity for a small volume of resting saliva and DMF. The meanof DMF inthe high buffer capacity group was significantly lower from that inthe moderate buffer capacity group (p<0.05) and the low buffer capacity group (p<0.01). These results suggest that determination of the buffering capacity employing a small amount of resting saliva was useful and that the risk of dental caries could be assessed by measuring the salivary buffering capacity using residual saliva in the mouth as the sample.