Evaluation of Total Unstimulated Saliva Viscosity in Complete Edentulous Patients

Purpose: Clinical and laboratory assessment of total unstimulated saliva viscosity in order to evaluate the quality of saliva in edentulous patients wearing complete dentures. Materials and methods: A number of eighty patients, of both sexes participated in the investigation: a control group, 40 patients aged 25-60 years, and a test group, 40 patients aged 45-75 years, edentulous patients treated with acrylic dentures. Clinical method used: Saliva collection was done from the floor of the oral cavity using a dental mirror. With the dental forceps salivary try forming a filament. Laboratory method used: Viscosity determination was made using saliva viscometer type Brookfield digital cone-plate. Results: Compared to the average values from literature, from the control group observed a change in salivary viscosity in 6 patients, 5 of them suffer from various general diseases. In the test group, shows the modified salivary viscosity 25 of 33 patients suffering from various general conditions. Modification of salivary viscosity on the remaining 8 patients could be attributed to wearing acrylic dentures because they do not suffer from any illness, is generally not found in any drug treatment and wear dentures over five years, while the remaining 7 healthy patients does not have these changes because of shortly wearing. Conclusions: The laboratory test method results correlate with clinical test results for determining the viscosity of saliva. In these tests it is found that the viscosity is changed in both groups (control and test). These changes in salivary viscosity may be attributed to general diseases and medications. For the entire test group we observed an increase in salivary viscosity including those who apparently do not present any general disease, these changes can be caused by wearing complete acrylic dentures, which change the temperature and pressure inside the space between the denture and the surface support