Salivary calcium concentration and tooth caries
Mickenautsch S*, Yengopal V*, Leal SC**, Bezerra AC**
*Division of Public Oral Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
**School of Dentistry, University of Brasilia, Brasilia DF, Brazil
Abstract
Inconclusive data found.
This abstract is prepared and maintained by Midentistry, currently published in The MI Compendium, 3rd edition, Copyright © 2009 Midentistry. The full data of this review is available in http://www.midentistry.com/secure-folder/content/3/mic12F1.asp (ISBN: 0-620-34080-0)
This record should be cited as: Mickenautsch S, Yengopal V, Leal SC, Bezerra AC. Salivary calcium concentration and tooth caries. Minim Interv Comp Database Syst Rev 2008; 1: RV03020080105.
This version first published online: August 30, 2008
Last revised: August 30, 2008
Objectives
To assess whether salivary calcium concentration is influencing caries incidence.
Search strategy
The trials were identified from a search of the PubMed database on: June 17, 2008 using the terms: "Salivary calcium AND ("Dental Caries"[Mesh] OR "Dental Caries Susceptibility"[Mesh] OR "Root Caries"[Mesh] OR "Tooth Demineralization"[Mesh]) and a search of the LILACS database on: August 25, 2008 using the terms: "salivary and dental caries AND Salivary Calcium and tooth demineralization AND cárie dentária and Calcio and saliva AND carie dentária and saliva and desmineralização".
Inclusion criteria
All 2-arm in-vivo or in-situ randomized/quasi-randomized control trials; COHORT studies; case control trials (CCT) on human tissue with relevance to review question including computable data; published in English or Portuguese.
Data collection and analysis
The systematic literature search identified 8 articles in compliance with the broad inclusion criteria. Of these, 3 articles were rejected due to insufficient internal validity. Five articles, reporting on 10 separate results, were accepted. All studies differed substantially in type of saliva measured, age and gender of subjects, method of measurement and group differentiation. For these reasons no META analysis was done.
Main results
The results are conflicting: 8 of the 10 individual study results show no difference in salivary calcium concentration between the no/low caries and caries groups. Only one article shows in 2 of its 4 results an association between no/low caries activity and higher calcium concentration in saliva and these finding is in line with the results of 2 out of the 3 rejected trials.
Authors' conclusions
So far there is only conflicting and inconclusive data available in order to answer this question. More studies are needed.
