Oral Modifications Due To Mouth Breathing In Children With Sleep-Disordered Breathing (sdb)

Adenoids and tonsils hypertrophy, important cause of sleep-disordered breathing in children, lead to mouth breathing.
Aims: Object of the study is verify if mouth breathing can cause pathological states in oral cavity or increase its risk. Between June2008 and August2009 we studied 30children with SDB and 10healthy children (control group), proportionate for
sex and age. Patients were submitted to anamnesis, physical examination, saliva samples collection (salivary pH evaluation, stimulated flow rate, IgA concentration, numbers of Streptococcus mutans and Lattobacillus in saliva) odontological examination (evaluation of gingival morphology, Hygiene Index-HI, Bleeding on Probing-BOP, Periodontal Screening and Recording-PSR).The statistical elaboration doesn’t show significant differences about salivary results. Morphological evaluation (gingival
colour: p=0,04; gingival margin size: p=0,04; free margin shape: p=0,02), HI, BOP e PSR showed significant differences. The study
demonstrates that mouth breathing in children with SDB leads to gingival inflammation but it doesn’t seem to increase caries risk in a short time. Pathologies of oral cavity don’t seem to increase considerably with the increase of severity of the sleep-disordered breathing.