Probiotics and their effect on oral bacteria count in children: a pilot study.

AIM: To assess the effect of the daily ingestion of a mixture of probiotics on the amount of Streptococcus mutans in the oral cavity of preschool-age patients with a high risk of caries. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Forty patients, aged between 4 and 6 years, with a high risk of dental caries were included in this pilot study. Patients were randomly assigned to two study groups: the Experimental Group (A) included patients who brushed their teeth and used fluoridated toothpaste in addition to consuming probiotics daily, and the Control Group (B) inclused patients who brushed their teeth and used fluoridated toothpaste but did not consume probiotics. Using the CariScreen, the microorganism count was determined at different times: baseline, 7, 14, 21 and 30 days. To identify the differences between both groups, a Mann-Whitney U test was performed, with a significance level of 0.05. RESULTS: It was observed that both groups showed similar microbial counts at the beginning of the trial (p>0.05), and a significant decrease in the count at the end of the study was found in the experimental group (p<0.05) 15 days after suspending ingestion. CONCLUSION: We found a significant reduction of RLU values in preschool children who ingested the tested probiotics in relation to the baseline values and 15 days after ceasing consumption.

Antifungal susceptibility of oral isolates of Candida species from chronic kidney disease patients on chronic dialysis.

Chronic renal disease patients under chronic dialysis (CRDD) have a multifactorial immunological deterioration with an increased risk of Candida infections. Incidence of Candida infections is increasing. Choice of suitable antifungal agents is limited due to the resistance of some species to several antifungals. Aim of the present study was to identify the distribution and antifungal susceptibility patterns of oral isolated Candida species from infected and colonized patients, as well as to investigate the risk factors for oral infection in patients on dialysis. Cross-sectional study, approved by the institutional bioethics committees was performed in CRDD patients. Demographic, clinic data, and oral mucosa samples were obtained. Infection diagnosis was established clinically and confirmed with exfoliative cytology, each sample was plated on CHROMagar Candida and incubated at 36°C for 2 days. Yeast species were identified by carbohydrate assimilation ID 32C AUX system and the apiweb database. For the antifungal susceptibility test, the M44 A-3 method (CLSI) using fluconazole (FCZ), miconazole (MCZ), nystatin (NYS), and voriconazole (VCZ). Study included 119 participants, the main cause of CRD was nephropathy due to DM2 (58%), and three-fourths of the patients were under hemodialysis. Candida prevalence was 56.3% of 67 colonized or infected patients, 88 isolates were obtained. Principal identified species were C. albicans (51.1%), C. glabrata (25%), and C. tropicalis (14.8%). C. glabrata showed a reduced response to FCZ in 50% of isolates and C. albicans had a reduced response in 16% of the isolates. Antifungal agent with the least efficacious response or with the lowest susceptibility in the isolates of these patients was MCZ, followed by VCZ and FCZ, whereas NYS induced the best antifungal response.

Comparison of tablet and disk diffusion methods for fluconazole and voriconazole in vitro activity testing against clinical yeast isolates.

We have compared a commercially available tablet diffusion method for the in vitro antifungal susceptibility testing of fluconazole (FCZ) and voriconazole (VCZ) with the disk diffusion method M44 (CLSI) with 282 clinical yeast isolates. The superior stability of antifungal agents in tablets can explain the differences for each category of susceptibility by both methods.Neo-Sensitabs tablets antifungal susceptibility testing showed an excellent correlation (0.98 for FCZ and 0.98 for VCZ at 24h and 0.96 for FCZ and 0.94 for VCZ at 48 h ), a reduced percentage of disagreements (4.6% and 8.2% for FCZ at 24h and 48 h respectively; 1.1% and 2.1% for VCZ at 24h and 48 h respectively) and the absence of statistically significant difference in comparison with the reference protocol for performing antifungal susceptibility testing with the agar diffusion method.