Dental caries and periodontal status in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus.

Introduction: Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is a chronic metabolic disease that strongly affects the health of individuals. Some studies have sug-gested that it affects oral health, thus indicating a higher-than-average predisposition of patients with diabetes to caries and periodontal diseases.

Aim Of The Study: We aimed at investigating the association between caries, periodontal diseases, and diabetes among children using dental indices.

Material And Methods: The study included 50 children (aged 10-18 years) who had type 1 diabetes for at least years. The participants were divided into well controlled (WC), (HBA1c < 7.5%) and poorly controlled (PC) (HBA1c ≥ 7.5%) groups (25 diabetic children each). The control group (GC) included non-diabetic children. The following clinical parameters were measured: DMFT index, plaque index (PI), approximal plaque index (API), gingival index (GI), and modified sulcus bleeding index (mSBI).

Results: The WC group had the lowest average value - 3.44 of the DMFT index with values of 5.80 and 3.88 in the PC and GC groups, respec-tively. A statistically significant difference was found in the DMFT value between PC and WC groups (p = 0.04). No statistically signif-icant differences in the values of other indices were found between the groups.

Conclusions: Children with poorly controlled type 1 diabetes were characterised by a significantly higher intensity of caries. In contrast, no statistical-ly significant differences were observed in the periodontal status between the study groups.