Author Interviews, Dental Research, Infections / 05.08.2016
Bacteria Causing Dental Caries Transmitted From Family and Friends
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Stephanie S. Momeni, MS, MBA
Doctoral Candidate, Department of Biology
DART Trainee, Department of Pediatric Dentistry & IOHR
UAB School of Dentistry
Birmingham, Alabama 35294-0007
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: This study was a small part of a large scale of S. mutans in a group of high-caries risk children and their household family members in Perry County, Alabama, USA. Overall dental caries is a dietary and infectious disease that we seek to understand better. We found only 34 rep-PCR genotypes for over 13,000 bacterial isolates from over 594 individual subjects. With so much commonality we wanted to determine if any conclusions could be made about transmission.
The key findings are:
• Children having multiple S. mutans genotypes were 2.3 times more likely to have dental caries.
• Analysis for transmission performed from two perspectives (by child and by genotype) indicating 63% of children shared at least 1 genotype with their mother, but 72% of children had at least 1 genotype not shared with any household family members.
• Child-to-child transmission of some genotypes is highly probable.
• About 1/3 of isolates observed were transient, and may confound the search for strains associated with tooth decay.
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