Assessing the salivary neutrophil rate in 3-5 years old children with early childhood caries and caries free children

Considering the pathogenesis of nursing caries, the emphasis has more been focused on microorganisms, especially streptocucus mutans, There are also multiple factors interfering the onset of this disease, the immunological responses of the host is one of the them. Among different immune factors, there has been little attention to the role of neutrophils, though they act as the frontiers in defence mechanism. So this study was done with the aim of evaluating the relation of salivary neutrophil percent in children with baby bottle tooth decay and caries free children in 3-5 years old kids in Tehran kindergartens. Methods & Subjects: Thirty – six children with nursing caries and 36 caries free kids were selected for this analytical cross sectional study. All the basic variables which might had affected on neutrophil rate were omitted. One ml of saliva was obtained from all children and a fruity was prepared for each case to compare the results. To prevent the bias all the samples were coded. The analysis was performed by SPSS ver10.0 sotfware and chi – square analysis. The neutrophils count in samples with early childhood caries was 23.6±11.4 and 17.6±11.2 in caries free kids. Saliva neutrophil count in kids with nursing caries was significantly higher than caries free children (P<0.02). In nursing caries the polymorphonuclears (Neutrophils) migrate into the oral cavity and a significant increase in their rate is observed in saliva, indicating their effort for defence.