Primary Study On Caries-Related Factors And Salivary Defensins In Preschool Children

Objective: To describe the dental caries status of preschool children in private kindergartens in Nanning and factors which affect their caries status. Test the concentrations of the antimicrobial peptides human alpha-defensins HNP1-3 (a mixture of HNP1, 2, 3), the beta-defensin-2 (hBD-2) in the preschool children's saliva.METHODS: 402 children aged of 3-6 from three private kindergartens in Nanning were orally examined in June 2008. A questionnaire about dietary and oral hygiene habits of the children, etc. to investigate possible explanatory variables for caries status was completed by their parents. The investigation results were analyzed by rank sum test and multiple linear regression analysis. 262 children's unstimulated whole salivary HNP1-3 and 66 children's salivary HBD-2 were tested by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).RESULTS: In all subjects, the prevalence of dental caries was 64.93%, mean dmfs was 6.11, mean dmft was 3.58 and the filling rate was 0.84%. Result of multiple linear regression analysis showed that the important influencing factors of dental caries for 3-6 year old children were age, habit of drinking milk or water with or without sugar, physical condition during the infantile period, frequency of sweetmeat intake. The medians of concentrations of HNP1-3 and hBD-2 in preschool children's saliva were respectively 5.15ng/ml and 2.20ng/ml. The concentrations of them had no correlation with the children's dmfs analyzed by Spearman rank correlation test (P>0.05).CONCLUSIONS: 1 Elder children, drinking milk or water with sugar frequently, physical condition during infantile period not good, regular intake of sweets,are the important risk factors for dental caries on 3-6 year old children's primary teeth. 2 HNP1-3 and HBD-2 express variably in preschool children's saliva, but it still can not say that there is relationship between the concentration of them and the development of primary teeth caries.