Abstract
Background: In this aging society, many elderly dental patients have subjective dry mouth. The most common cause of oral dryness is the use of particular medicines, and calcium blocker is widely taken as the treatment of hypertension. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the saliva of oral dryness patients taking calcium blocker in comparison with that of the healthy elderly persons and the patients with Sjögren’s syndrome.
Methods: Forty six subjects were enrolled in this study (fifteen patients taking calcium blocker, fifteen patients with Sjögren’s syndrome, and sixteen healthy elderly persons). The unstimulated salivary flow rate was examined by ejecting gathered saliva from the mouth into a test tube for 10 min. Stimulated salivary flow rate was measured by gum-chewing with gathered saliva ejected into the test tube over a 10-min period.The total protein concentration of the saliva was determined with a protein assay kit. The differences in unstimulated salivary flow rate, protein concentration, and flow rate of protein among the three groups was analyzed with Kruskal Wallis test. The difference in stimulated saliva was analyzed with one-way analysis of variance.
Results: Unstimulated salivary flow rate and the flow rate of protein on unstimulated saliva was significantly lower on patients taking calcium blocker and patients with Sjögren’s syndrome than that on healthy elderly persons (P < 0.01). Stimulated salivary flow rate was significantly lower on patients taking calcium blocker than that on healthy elderly persons (P < 0.05), and significantly lower on patients with Sjögren’s syndrome than that on healthy elderly persons (P < 0.01).
Conclusion: The results of this study suggested that the condition of salivary gland in oral dryness patients is different from healthy elderly. Furthermore, it was considered that the submaxillary gland in patients taking calcium blocker would be affected by the calcium blocker.