Clinical Survey And Animal Experiment Of The Stress Effect On Caries

Objective:to investigate the relationship between stress and caries and explore the possible mechanism of the stress effect on caries by clinical survey and animal experiment.Methods:1.Clinical survey:90dental volunteers (caries group of45people, no caries group of45) were enrolled in the study. All subjects were required to complete a questionnaire that was mainly made up of the symptom checklist90(SCL-90). Data were collected including psychological factors, oral health behaviors, life events, basic and socio-demographics, and clinical parameters such as decay, missig, filled (DMFT) were also recorded. All the results were analyzed by statistics.2.Animal experiment:the first molar occlusal surface of24SD rats were injured by grounding with turbines, were randomly divided into stress group (12rats given daily cold bath, fasting, water deprivation, stimulation) and control group (n=12, no stimulation). They were killed in batches at5,13,20,28day, and the gross examination, pathology section and P2X3receptor-positive in rat dental pulp were done to explore the stress in the pathogenesis of dental caries.Results:1:Clinical survey:1) Compared with caries group, control group had high degree, high income, high unmarried portion, less divorced rate, more dental brush, high portion of acute life events. There were statistical difference between caries group and control group in education (P<0.01), marital status, dental brush, and life events (P<0.05).2) Comparing with controls, the caries group got more higher scores in interpersonal sensitivity, anxiety, terrorist (P<0.01or P<0.05) according to the result of the SCL-90, which indicate that the caries group were more higher stress than the control group.3) there was significant correlation between DMFT and SCL-90in somatization, obsessive-compulsive, anxiety, depression, interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid (P<0.01or P<0.05) in caries group.2:Animal experiment1) There are congestion and edema, neutrophils, lymphocytes and other inflammatory cell infiltration, and dental pulp cells degeneration and necrosis in the rat dental pulps of the stress group by HE staining pathological sections2) p2x3receptor expression in stress group dental pulps by immunohistochemicalConclusion:The results of clinical investigations and animal experiments support that stress is related to the incidence of dental caries. Stress could alter immune function and other factors that reduce the host’s immune defenses and increase host susceptibility to disease, triggered by the occurrence of dental caries. Stress is a significant risk indicator for caries and plays an important role in onset, development and prognosis process of caries.