AUTHOR=Yoshida Rosemeire Arai , Lobato Tiago Bertola , Gorjão Renata , França Lucas Santiago , Alves Lívia Araujo , Santos Maria Teresa Botti Rodrigues 

TITLE=Detection and quantification of pathogens in saliva of adolescents with cerebral palsy: a cross-sectional study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Dental Medicine

VOLUME=4

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/dental-medicine/articles/10.3389/fdmed.2023.1208243

DOI=10.3389/fdmed.2023.1208243

ISSN=2673-4915

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Background</title><p>Elevated levels of inflammatory mediators in saliva have been described in individuals with cerebral palsy (CP).</p></sec><sec><title>Objective</title><p>The aim of this study was to detect and quantify the pathogens <italic>Porphyromonas gingivalis, Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, Fusobacterium nucleatum and Prevotella intermedia</italic> in the saliva of adolescents with CP.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>This is a cross-sectional study with adolescents with CP to detect periodontopathogens from saliva samples. Initially, saliva was collected from the CP (<italic>n</italic> = 34) and control groups (<italic>n</italic> = 31), followed by the gingival index (GI) for distribution of the groups of individuals with CP and control with gingivitis (bleeding on probing ≥ 10%) and without gingivitis. Bacterial DNA was extracted from saliva samples for detection of periodontopathogens by quantitative PCR (q-PCR). Data were analyzed by Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis tests, analysis of variance <italic>t</italic>-test (ANOVA) with Tukey–Kramer <italic>post-hoc</italic> tests (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05).</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>The quantification of DNA of periodontopathogens in saliva samples showed that adolescents with CP present a variability (22.93–39.56) in the detection of <italic>P. gingivalis</italic> and that some subjects with CP and gingivitis (<italic>n</italic> = 4) present high quantification of <italic>P. gingivalis</italic> (ranging 39.56–37.65), although no significant difference was found between the groups (<italic>p</italic> &gt; 0.05). A significant contrast was observed for the pathogen <italic>P. intermedia</italic> when comparing the difference in the control group (<italic>p</italic> = 0.0396). No major differences were detected in the quantification of periodontopathogens evaluated between the control group and CP.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>Adolescents with CP showed variability in the detection of DNA of periodontopathogens, especially a great variation in the detection of <italic>P</italic> gingivalis in saliva of CP with gingivitis.</p></sec>