Assessment of some incipient caries risk factors in adolescents

Relevance. Risk assessment of carious lesion onset remains relevant due to the high incidence rate. The article presents the data on the impact of permanent dental enamel functional condition and microbial factor on incipient caries onset in adolescents.
Purpose: The study aimed to investigate the etiology and pathogenesis risk characteristics of incipient caries onset in adolescents.
Material and methods. The study included 90 adolescents aged 11-17 y.o. from Penza city. At the clinical stage, we studied adolescents’ permanent teeth vulnerability to caries; then, we formed the study groups according to WHO criteria (Group 1 – moderate, Group 2 – high, Group 3 – the very high intensity of caries) and Group 4 included children of the same age without caries. Vital staining and electric pulp testing with the “DentEst” device (Geosoft, Russia) detected white spot lesions. The OHI-S and enamel acid resistance test (TER-test) evaluated the level of oral hygiene. The laboratory stage determined the number of mixed saliva cells contaminated with bacterial microflora (microflora contamination coefficient) to define the bacterial load in the mixed saliva of the examined adolescents.
Results. Besides high clinical rate of white spot lesions (intensity rate 3.10 ± 0.05 and demineralization degree 5.90 ± 0.08 μA) linked to poor oral hygiene level according to OHI-S (2.80 ± 0.13), the examined children of Group 3 (very high caries intensity) revealed a decrease in enamel acid resistance (TER-test 6.50 ± 0.22) and increased bacterial load of mixed saliva – microflora contamination coefficient (48.12 ± 0.80%). Differences with the same parameters in Group 4 (without caries) were statistically significant (P < 0.05). The study of the statistical relationship between enamel demineralization degree and the level of mixed saliva bacterial load (microflora contamination coefficient) detected a positive correlation between the studied parameters of moderate and high power and received the following correlation coefficient values in Group 1 (R = 0.46), 2 and 3 (R = 0.73 and R = 0.78) respectively.
Conclusion. Assessment of some risk factors for white spot lesion onset and monitoring of changes may include the analysis of clinical and laboratory data on the hard-dental-tissue condition and mixed saliva bacterial load determination (microflora contamination coefficient).

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