Original article Tongue Piercing: The Impact of Material on Microbiological Findings

Purpose:Biofilms on oral piercingsmay serve as a bacterial reservoir and lead to systemic bacteremia or local transmission of pathogenic microbiota. The use of piercing materials which are less susceptible to biofilm accumulation could contribute to prevention of problems. The present study investigated whether there are microbiological differences in bacterial samples collected from tongue piercingsmade of differentmaterials. Methods: A total of 85 subjects with tongue piercings participated in this study. After a baseline dental examination, sterile piercings of four differentmaterialswere randomly allocated to the study subjects. After 2 weeks, microbiologic samples were collected and processed by checkerboard deoxyribonucleic acid-deoxyribonucleic acid hybridization methods. Results: About 28.8 % of subjects reported 61 lingual recessions (1.91 .96 mm), whereas 5 % reported tooth chipping on one tooth each. With the exception of Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans (Y4), Fusobacte-rium nucleatum species, and Parvimonas micra, bacteria associated with periodontitis were not commonly found in the samples from studs or piercing channels. Of the 80 bacterial species, 67 were found at significantly higher levels (p .001) in samples from stainless steel than from polytetrafluoroethylene or polypropylene piercings. Conclusion: The lowbacterial counts frompiercing channels suggest that having a tongue piercedwould no