Yazd Journal of Dental Research

Introduction: Diabetes is the most common metabolic disease, which can cause different lesions in the oral mucosa, among which Candidiasis can be mentioned as one of the most common types of these lesions especially in the uncontrolled diabetic patients. Therefore, the present study aimed to compare Candidia colony count in the saliva of controlled and uncontrolled diabetic patients.

Methods: This case control study was conducted on 40 controlled diabetic (HBA1C<7) and 40 uncontrolled diabetic (HBA1C>7) patients, who had the admission criteria for this study. Saliva samples were collected by spitting method and cultured on the special media to determine the colonization and Candida type in both groups. The study results were analyzed using T-test and spearman correlation tests.

Results: The mean of Candida colony number was 54.2±85.3 in the controlled group and 186.3±192.9 in the un-controlled group, between which a statistically significant difference was observed (P=0.0001). Moreover, no significant correlation was reported between HBA1C and Candida colony number in both controlled and uncontrolled groups (P= 0.31 in controlled group, and P= 0.555 in un-controlled group). In this study, the Candida colony number separated from saliva samples of the controlled group and males (P=0.042) was significantly lower than the control group (P=000).

Conclusions: The mean of Candida colony number in saliva samples of uncontrolled diabetic patients was reported higher compared to the controlled group. There was no significant correlation between HBA1C levels and Candida colonization.