Rūta Žaliūnienė, Jolanta Aleksejūnienė, Vilma Brukienė, Vytautė Pečiulienė
Abstract
Patients with haemophilia often face difficulties in accessing71primary dental care: they are at increased risk of spontaneous gumbleeding and significant bleeding from invasive dental procedures.Other of the known barriers is lack of confidence in the ability ofdentists to manage patients with haemophilia.The aim of this study was to examine the dental health andits determinants in Lithuanian children with haemophilia and tocompare these findings to the general population.Materials and methods. Two study groups were formed: a groupof cases, children with haemophilia aged between 4-17 years and agroup of controls, randomly selected healthy subjects matched forgender, age and place of residense. The Quantitative Plaque PercentIndex (P% index), caries related microflora, stimulated salivary flowrate and buffer capacity, dmf(t), DMF(t) scores were calculated andanalyzed. Dietary habits, frequency of tooth brushing, educationaland economic level of the parents and type of haemophilia weredetermined by a questionnaire.Results. Data were collected from 57 children among which 27were children with haemophilia and 30 healthy controls. Childrenwith haemophilia had lower overall caries experience and lessunmet dental treatment needs in deciduous dentitions as comparedto their healthy counterparts, but were no differences between thestudy groups in permanent dentitions. Higher bacteriological countswere found in controls than in study group. Healthy children werefrom higher socio-economic status families than children withhaemophilia.Conclusions. Better dental health was observed in children withhaemophilia in deciduos teeth as compared to healthy children. Inpermanent dentitions overall caries experience and unmet dentaltreatment needs did not differ between cases and controls.
Keyword(s): haemophilia, overall caries experience, risk determinants
DOI: 10.5200/sm-hs.2015.011
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