Candida albicans in the Oral Cavities of Diabetics

¹ Veterans Administration Research Hospital and Northwestern University Dental School, Chicago, Illinois

Candida albicans was isolated as frequently from the oral cavity of 200 noncontrolled diabetic and 200 controlled diabetic patients as from the oral cavity of 200 nondiabetic individuals. When isolates were found, the quantity of the yeasts was most frequently (67.9 per cent) low, in the range fewer than 5,000 yeast organisms/swab. The yeasts were isolated as frequently and the same quantity in each of the three groups except that a quarter of the dentulous controled diabetics from whom yeasts were isolated had over 22,600 yeasts organisms per swab.

Few periodontal lesions were observed in the entire 600 subjects and were found as frequently in the diabetic as in the nondiabetic subjects. Only the noncontrolled diabetics exhibited a slightly greater incidence of hemorrhagic gingiva and motile teeth than either the controlled diabetics or the nondiabetic groups.

In the edentulous patient, the diabetic condition did not appear to favor the development of the inflammation of the mucosa beneath the denture. In the diabetic edentulous patient who did not wear dentures, almost no inflammation of the gingival mucosa was apparent.