Is there an association between salivary immune and microbial profile with dental health in systematically healthy children?

This study aimed to characterize the inflammatory profile of systemically healthy children’s saliva and its association with clinical diagnoses of caries and gingival inflammation.

Unstimulated saliva was collected from 100 children before clinical dental examinations. The saliva samples were analyzed for total protein and specific inflammatory cytokines (IL-10, IL-8, IL-6, and TNFα) with Bradford and ELISA assays, respectively. Salivary bacteria were quantified using a quantitative real-time polymerase chain assay. The salivary values were then correlated with age, DMFT index, plaque index (PI), and gingival index (GI).

The mean age of the cohort was 8.08 ± 0.23 years with 49% females, the mean DMF of the cohort was 2.64 ± 0.31, the mean GI was 0.51 ± 0.06, and the mean PI was 1.33 ± 0.07. Significant correlations were found between PI with DMFT and GI. Children with DMFT > 2 had significantly higher levels of IL-8 compared with children with DMFT ≤ 2. IL-6 and TNFα were significantly higher among children with PI > 1 than among children with PI ≤ 1.

Salivary cytokine were found to be associate with clinical parameters as DMFT and PI, thus may be a potential tool that reflects dental health status.

The presence of salivary cytokines in children may reflect evaluation of dental caries and oral inflammation.