Assessment of Oral Health Status Among Children With Obstructive Sleep Apnoea – An Observational Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND 

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in children commonly intersects with pediatric dentistry concerns, stemming from factors like adenotonsillar hypertrophy, retrognathia, or maxillary transverse deficiency that obstruct the upper respiratory pathway in sleep, leading to habitual snoring, hypopneas, and chronic mouth breathing. This results in xerostomia, reduced salivary buffering, cariogenic plaque accumulation, gingival inflammation with increased bleeding tendencies, elevated probing depths and higher deft/DMFT caries experience, alongside dentofacial changes such as excessive overjet, Class II molar and canine relationships, narrowed intermolar widths, anterior open bite tendencies and diminished oral health-related quality of life. Routine dental assessments incorporate deft/ DMFT, OHI and gingival indices enabling early identification of this bidirectional sleep-oral health nexus.

AIM

To assess caries incidence, prevalence of gingivitis and oral hygiene status among children with obstructive sleep apnoea.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this observational study, 80 children aged 7 – 10 years were divided into 2 groups, namely case

(n=40) and control (n=40) based on history taking and nasal endoscopy. Intra oral findings including

Decayed, Missing and Filled Tooth (DMFT), decayed, extracted, filled (def) indices, gingival and Oral Hygiene Indices were recorded for both test and control groups, after obtaining consent from the parent and assent from the child.

All collected data were entered into Microsoft Excel and analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Chi-square test was applied to compare categorical variables between case and control groups, while the independent samples ttest was used to compare mean DMFT and deft scores.

RESULTS

There was no statistically significant disparity in age and gender distribution between the case and control groups. Although oral hygiene index and gingival indices were poorer for case group in contrast to control group, no statistically significant difference was observed. Regarding, occlusion and DMFT, intergroup variance was found to be highly statistically significant with case group demonstrating higher prevalence of class II malocclusion and DMFT scores. The comparison of deft scores between the groups showed no statistically significant difference.

CONCLUSION

Despite the current study's constraints, it may be inferred that while oral hygiene and gingival parameters were comparable between groups, differences were evident in occlusal characteristics and permanent dentition caries experience with Class II malocclusion and higher DMFT scores being more prevalent in the case group.