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Effect of oral health care on the recovery from surgery in elderly patients by measuring volatile sulphur compounds
Author(s) -
Yoshihara A,
Sato M,
Miyazaki H
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
oral diseases
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.953
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1601-0825
pISSN - 1354-523X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1601-0825.2005.01105_11.x
Subject(s) - medicine , dentistry , tongue , hydrogen sulphide , oral health , sulfur , surgery , chemistry , pathology , organic chemistry
Oral health care is suggested to be an effective method to decrease pathogenic microorganisms. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of oral health care on the recovery from gastrointestinal operations in elderly patients. For this objective, randomized control trials were used for 30 patients (70–80 years old) with gastrointestinal diseases. Infection control was done by antibiotics instillation before and after operations in general and by povidone–iodine solution in the oral cavity both in the intervention (test) group and the control group. For the intervention group, in addition, manual tooth brushing and tongue cleaning were advocated to reduce bacterial putrefaction. A simple gas chromatograph (Oral Chroma ® , Abilit Co., Japan) was used to measure hydrogen sulphide, methyl mercaptan and dimethyl sulphide concentrations in the mouth air. Furthermore, oral microorganisms were isolated in tonsils. For 5 days after surgery, the increments of mean values of hydrogen sulphide, methyl mercaptan and dimethyl sulphide in the test group were 0.81 ± 4.86 ng/10 ml, 0.40 ± 1.72 ng/10 ml and 0.16 ± 1.60 ng/10 ml, respectively. On the other hand, those in control group were 2.93 ± 8.09 ng/10 ml, 1.10 ± 2.30 ng/10 ml and 0.36 ± 1.13 ng/10 ml, respectively. The differences in methyl mercaptan concentration between the test and the control groups were statistically significant ( P < 0.001). In addition, the mean number of kinds of microorganisms in each patient's tonsils in the test and the control groups were 3.08 ± 0.95 and 3.64 ± 1.34 before surgery and were 2.62 ± 0.65 and 3.50 ± 1.74 5 days after, respectively ( P < 0.05). The oral cavity is a potential reservoir of pathogenic microorganisms. These results demonstrated that oral health care to remove pathogens from dental biofilm or tongue coating can decrease levels of oral malodor and may also reduce the risk of systemic diseases.