Journal of Dental Research, Vol 70, 979-983, Copyright © 1991 by International & American Associations for Dental Research Online Journals
The prevalence of root caries in a diabetic population
M. Tavares, P. Depaola, P. Soparkar and K. Joshipura
Forsyth Dental Center, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.
The objective of this study was to assess the level of root caries in a
population of diabetic adults. Diabetics are of special interest because
they are alleged to be periodontally compromised and have atypical patterns
of refined carbohydrate ingestion. Diabetic subjects were patients of the
Joslin Diabetic Center in Boston and had significantly elevated blood
glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin levels over at least a ten-year period.
Eligible subjects had to be between the ages of 45 and 65 and have a
minimum of ten teeth and three sites with recession. Data were collected on
coronal caries, oral hygiene, gingivitis, pocket depth, recession, and root
caries and were compared with data from control subjects from a larger
non-diabetic study group. There were 88 diabetics and 185 controls with
mean ages of 55.7 and 56.3 years, respectively. The groups were found to be
similar with respect to the numbers of buccal surface sites with gingival
recession and the numbers of carious root lesions. There was a distinct
difference, however, with respect to restored root surfaces: 1.76 mean
filled surfaces were observed in the controls, as compared with 0.49 in the
diabetics. A Katz Root Caries Index (for which lesions are calculated as a
percentage of the numbers of exposed root surfaces) was determined to be
15.2 for the controls and 7.1 for the diabetics. A reasonable inference is
that these differences are the result of a restricted ingestion of refined
carbohydrates by the diabetic group. This was confirmed by a dietary survey
of subsamples from the diabetic and non-diabetic groups.
