Journal of Dental School

Objective: Oral health status particularly maxillofacial disorders in adolescents can affect different aspects of the quality of life. This study aimed to assess the age-related quality of life of students in two age groups of 11-14 years and 14-18 years to evaluate its correlation with orthodontic treatment need in adolescents in Isfahan.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 11-18 year-old middle school and high- school students. Subjects were selected via two-stage stratified random sampling from 30 schools in different areas of Isfahan city. After examination by two calibrated clinicians, Dental Health Component of Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need (DHC-IOTN) was recorded for all subjects. The Oral Health Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) was assessed using self-reported Child Perception Questionnaire (CPQ) in 11-14 year-olds and Child Oral Health Impact Profile (COHIP) in 14-18 year-olds. After descriptive analyses, the correlation between the DHC-IOTN and the quality of life score of subjects was assessed using the Spearman’s correlation test and the Mann Whitney U test.

Results: A total of 1,227 students were evaluated. The mean and standard deviation (SD) was found to be 18.3 (13.7) for CPQ score in 11-14 year olds. For COHIP score it was found to be 103.6 (18) in 14-18 year olds. A total of 22% from the 604 students examined in the first group, and 17% of 570 students in the second group definitely needed orthodontic treatment. Significant differences existed in the mean quality of life score among the three groups requiring orthodontic treatment in the two age groups (p<0.05). The correlation between the malocclusion severity and quality of life subscales was weak.

Conclusion: Based on the results, malocclusion significantly affects the dental function and social and emotional domains of quality of life. However, considering the role of confounders, studies with condition-specific formats of the questionnaire are required to assess the correlation  of malocclusions with the quality of life after controlling for other factors.

Objective: Oral hygiene must start at a young age. Childhood is the perfect time to start the conversion of knowledge into creative thinking and subsequent health care activity. This study  aimed to assess the efficacy of oral hygiene instruction via an educational film for oral health promotion of elementary students.

Methods: In this experimental, interventional, before and after study, data were collected using an author-designed questionnaire. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed using face validity while its reliability was approved using Cronbach’s alpha statistics. The study population comprised of all four graders of an elementary school in district 14 of Tehran in 2012-2013. An educational package containing an educational film on oral hygiene suitable for children aged 10-12 years was prepared and a questionnaire was designed according to the educational content of the film. The questionnaires were filled by the students before and two weeks after watching the film. Data were analyzed using paired t-test at 0.05 level of significance.

Results: Significant differences were noted in level of knowledge, attitude and function of students after the intervention compared to their baseline state. According to t-test, the mean knowledge, the mean attitude and the mean short-term performance scores after the intervention were 15.43 (0.9 increase) (p<0.05), 28.11 (9.35 increase) (p<0.001) and 26.79 (9.02 increase) (p<0.001) respectively. Conclusion: This study indicated the positive effect of instruction via an educational film on knowledge, attitude and short-term performance of students in terms of oral hygiene. Health workers must plan such effective interventions to promote public dental health.

Objective: Micronuclei are induced in cells by a variety of substances, like UV radiation, infrared rays, X-radiations, and chemicals. Among them tobacco- specific nitrosamines have been reported to be potent mutagenic agents which are thought to be responsible for the induction of chromosomal aberrations resulting in production of micronuclei. The main aim of our study is to compare MN frequency among subjects, chewing tobacco only, chewing and smoking tobacco only, and chewing, smoking with alcohol, and to co-relate with control subjects.

Methods: Healthy subjects are included in the study and divided into four groups having 20 subjects in each group. Group-I is chewing only, group-II chewing and smoking, group-III chewing and smoking with alcohol, group-IV control. Smears were made from buccal exfoliated cells and stained with DNA specific stain Acridine orange. Frequency on MNC per 100 cells was assessed with, one way ANOVA & Tukey HSD Multiple Comparisons test with p<0.05.

Results: The mean number of MN was 2.3, 2.4, 3.6 in the group of chewing only, chewing & smoking, chewing, smoking & alcohol respectively. While assessing MN in the controls, out of 20 cases, 19 showed no MN among the cells examined while 1 patient showed 1 MN each per 100 cells examined.

Conclusion: The present study concludes that MN is a better surrogate biomarker to predict genotoxicity for tobacco related habits.

Objective: Anesthetic techniques like the Akinosi technique were introduced to surmount the problems of the conventional inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) technique. This study aimed to compare the local anesthetic efficacy of IANB via the conventional and Akinosi techniques in patients presenting to the Maxillofacial Surgery Department of School of Dentistry, Shahid Beheshti University.

Methods: This clinical trial was conducted on 80 candidates for bilateral extraction of mandibular molars. For each patient, local anesthesia was induced by IANB injection, which was done by the conventional technique in one side and by the Akinosi technique in the other side of the mouth. The allocation of technique to side was randomized. Time to anesthesia for the long buccal, lingual and inferior alveolar nerves (IAN), degree of pain during injection and tooth extraction and incidence of positive aspiration in the two techniques were evaluated and analyzed using Wilcoxon Signed Rank and Chi square tests.

Results: The mean time to anesthesia for the IAN was 2.82 minutes in the conventional and 3.05 minutes for the Akinosi technique. These values were 1.47 and 1.55 minutes, respectively for the lingual nerve and 1.43 and 1.56 minutes, respectively for the long buccal nerve. Four patients in the Akinosi technique and 12 patients in the conventional technique had positive aspiration. During anesthetic injection with the Akinosi technique, 72.5% were pain free, 18.8% experienced mild, 5% experienced moderate and 3.8% experienced severe pain. These values in the conventional technique were 51.3%, 27.5%, 11.3% and 10%, respectively.

Conclusion: Considering the lack of a significant difference between the success rate of conventional and Akinosi IANB techniques, Akinosi technique seems to be a suitable alternative to the conventional technique since it is less painful and has lower risk of positive aspiration.

Objective: Lack of a dental material with optimal adhesion and sealability is an important challenge in modern dentistry leading to marginal leakage. There are controversies on the necessity of enamel preparation in pit and fissure sealant therapy and its effect on decreasing the microleakage; therefore, the present in vitro study aimed to assess the amount of microleakage with and without enamel preparation.

Methods: In this experimental study, 30 sound premolars assigned suitable for sealant application, were chosen and randomly divided into two groups. Sealant was applied to all teeth with the same conventional technique. In group A, fissure sealant was applied without enamel preparation while in group B, sealant was applied after fissurotomy with bur. The teeth were thermocycled and microleakage was measured using silver nitrate as leakage tracer. The teeth were then cut into three bucco-lingual sections and examined under a stereomicroscope with 32× magnification. The amount of dye penetration into the sealant was recorded in microns and the degree of microleakage was classified into four degrees of 0, 1, 2 and 3. T-test was applied for the comparison of data between the two groups.

Results: In total,20% of specimens in group B (fissurotomy) had degree 1 and 80% had degree 0microleakage and no specimen had degrees 2 and 3 microleakage, while in group A (no preparation), 20% had degree 1, 33.3% had degree 2 and 46.7% had degree 3microleakage. No specimen had degree 0 microleakage. Therefore, placement of sealant with enamel preparation significantly decreased microleakage (p<0.001).

Conclusion: In view of the findings of this investigation, it seems that enamel preparation reduces marginal leakage in pit and fissure sealant therapy.

Objective: Lack of scientific writing skills is one major problem encountered for publication of research results of Iranian scientists in accredited journals. As the result, many research projects or dissertation findings remain unpublished. This study aimed to assess the quality of writing of the “results” section of some original articles published in Iranian Farsi and international English journals.

Methods: This analytical, cross-sectional study was conducted on 64 dental articles published in 3 international English and 3 Iranian Farsi journals. Selection of journals was non-random but articles were selected randomly based on specific criteria. A checklist containing 32 criteria regarding general statistics, context of the results, statistical tests, tables, charts and graphs was prepared. Obtained data were analyzed by SPSS 10 using Fisher’s exact and chi square tests.

Results: Farsi articles met 64.1% and English articles met 65.8% of the checklist criteria. No significant difference was found in the quality of the results section of Farsi and English papers (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Most papers did not provide adequate details in the results section to help readers better comprehend the subject.

Objective: Systemic sclerosis (SS) is a chronic autoimmune disease of connective tissue, which involves skin and internal organs, and results in collagen deposition and fibroblasts activation. Studies have reported a higher risk of malignancy in patients with progressive systemic sclerosis (PSS).The aim of this study is to report a case of tongue squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in a patient with PSS.

Case: A 46-year-old woman with SS presented to the Department of Oral Medicine of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences Dental School with chief complaint of an ulcer on her tongue. During intraoral examination, an asymptomatic ulcer measuring 2.0×1.5 cm was discovered on the right lateral border of the tongue. Incisional biopsy under local anesthesia was performed and histopathological report confirmed presence of squamous cell carcinoma. After further evaluation, surgery was performed, followed by three sessions of brachytherapy and six sessions of chemotherapy. After 26 months of follow-up, there was no evidence of recurrence.

Conclusion: Periodic screening examinations are necessary to discover possible malignancies in primary stages in patients with SS.

Objective: Maintaining the health of oral tissues is a major goal in dentistry. However, limitations in dental materials, instruments, procedures and medications prevent achievement of this goal. Advances in nanotechnology have paved the way to approach this goal. This study reviews the advances on nanotechnology in dentistry.

Review of Literatures: In this review study, Google Scholar, PubMed, Science Direct, Medline and Cochrane databases were searched for relevant English and Farsi papers from 1981 to 2013. The searched key words were: “nano-characterization”, “antimicrobial agent”, “nano-dentistry”, “nanotechnology”, “nanoparticles”, and “nano-medicine”.

Conclusion: Studies indicated extensive applications of nanotechnology in various fields of  dentistry such as prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Use of nanoparticles as antimicrobial agents in conjunction with other oral hygiene tools such as toothpastes may prevent many oral and dental conditions. Also, application of nanostructures enables faster and easier detection of oral cancers and assessment of the saliva for presence of viruses, proteins or specific markers. Last but not least, nano-capsules, nano-coatings and nano-antibiotics enable more efficient treatments.