Assessing consequences of untreated carious lesions using pufa index among 5-6 years old school children in an urban Indian population.

BACKGROUND: Dental caries is a major chronic noncommunicable disease affecting whole of mankind. Nontreatment of caries can have severe consequences such as pain, abscess formation, space infection, etc., which leads to loss of function, working hours or absence from school in children. These consequences are equally important, while planning dental care program for a community. AIM: The aim of this study is to assess the prevalence and severity of consequences of untreated carious lesions using pufa index that is, pulpal involvement, and ulcer due to root fragments, fistula, and abscess index among 5-6 year old school children in an urban Indian population. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 603 school going children of 5-6 year age group in mainly an urban Indian population. Children from 12 randomly selected schools were examined for pufa and decayed extracted filled indices. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Overall mean pufa value was 0.9 ± 1.93 and prevalence was 38.6% with major contribution from P component of index. Untreated caries ratio was 35%, suggesting that more than one-third of the developed carious lesions cause adverse events in a population. This study emphasis the need for treating dental caries at its earliest possible stage to avoid severe consequences. The pufa index can be used as tool to highlight these adverse consequences to dental professionals and health authorities.

Salivary proteins and early childhood caries: A gel electrophoretic analysis.

BACKGROUND: Early childhood caries (ECC) is a common disease process that afflicts a large proportion of the child population worldwide. Extensive research in past indicates that it is the result of bacterial infection, also influenced by host and dietary factors. Current caries research seeks to identify risk factors as well as natural oral defenses that may protect against or prevent caries development. Saliva, in spite of being the strongest defense system, still has a wide array of properties and proteins whose role is yet not clearly known. AIM: To compare the resting human whole salivary characteristics in children with ECC and those who are caries free. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: The study was conducted over a period of 9 months in 4- to 6-year-old 100 children comprising two groups - 50 with ECC and 50 caries free. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The whole salivary flow rate, pH, mean protein concentration, and the electrophoretic profile of salivary proteins by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) were compared among both groups. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: The SPSS (version 11.0) software package was used to conduct the chi-square, Fisher's exact and Pearson's chi-square tests to compare the data. RESULTS: On gel electrophoresis, there was a significant difference among both groups with caries-free subjects having a higher number of proline-rich protein bands, substantiating the protective role of this protein. A significantly higher number of glycoprotein bands were observed in the whole saliva of subjects with ECC. A significant inverse correlation between the mean protein concentration and the whole salivary flow rate was observed in both groups.

Barriers to leadership positions for Indian women in academic dentistry.

Indian women, have come up a long way during the past 50 years. Gone are the days when the leadership positions in dentistry and health care professions were occupied solely by males and the women in-charge were looked down upon as anomalies. The staff rooms in dental and medical schools, the research laboratories in India today are employing women, who have quietly begun challenging the conventional male ideas that had shaped the policies earlier on. Women have advanced considerably in academic dentistry but like every coin, this story too, has two sides. In spite of the considerable gain in equity of status, women in research and academic careers related to health care professions still face innumerable barriers to their careers. This study was conducted with an aim to highlight the various barriers being faced by women in leadership positions in academic dentistry in India and this paper also suggests issues which require global concern for unbiased advancement of women. This was a questionnaire-based study in which the subjects were women in leadership positions in the various dental colleges in India. The questions are related to the various barriers like family commitments, attitude of the society, sexual harassment, gender bias and lack of cooperation from spouse which hinders the development of the careers of such women with tremendous potential. The results show that 67% of the subjects feel there are more barriers to their careers as women than men and health care professions definitely need more women leaders for improvement in women's health status globally. 63.5% of women in dentistry feel their family commitments are barriers to rising in their careers and 64.7% report that a marriage is happier if the husband's career graph is better than wife's. The survey results indicate that the same salary is paid to 93.5% women as their male colleagues. The results of the study show that there certainly has been a change in outlook of Indian women as they have broken the traditional norms and taken up careers in academic dentistry. There certainly is a positive side to this story but numerous challenges especially in the form of family commitments still remain for women in leadership positions in the dental colleges in India.