Srinisha M, Anjaneyulu K*
Introduction: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a common chronic metabolic disorder which affects millions of people. Oral cavity and contagious structures can be dramatically affected by diabetes. However, there is a lack of consensus among researchers regarding the relationship between DM and dental caries. Hence, the present study was carried out to assess the anterior teeth caries prevalence among diabetic and non-diabetic adults.
Materials and methods: It is a retrospective, cross sectional study conducted among patients visiting a University dental hospital in Chennai. Microsoft Excel was used for tabulation of the parameters and then the data was exported to the SPSS software version 20.0. Descriptive statistics and relation between variables was determined using the chi square test, where p<0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: In the present study, the most common age group was 28-37 years (33.9%). The most common gender was found to be male (64.0%). Most of the patients were non-diabetic (71.8%). Most of the patients had caries in both anterior and posterior teeth (33.9%). Majority of the non-diabetic patients had caries in anterior teeth (26.6%) whereas diabetic patients had dental caries in both anterior and posterior teeth (28.2%).
Conclusion: Within the limits of the study, Majority of the non-diabetic patients had caries in anterior teeth whereas diabetic patients had dental caries in both anterior and posterior teeth.