Assessment of Oral Hygiene and Gingivitis in Adolescents With and Without Cystic Fibrosis.

Purpose: To assess oral hygiene, gingivitis, and the association between them for adolescents with cystic fibrosis (CF) compared to nonCF controls.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study of adolescents with CF aged 12 to 17 years (n=27), compared to two non-CF control groups: Medicaid-enrolled adolescents with special health care needs (ASHCN; n=60) and healthy Medicaid-enrolled adolescents (n=185). Dental plaque was a proxy for oral hygiene, and gingival bleeding was a proxy for gingivitis. This study employed confounder-adjusted binomial logistic regression to compare outcomes between adolescents with CF and controls.

Results

After adjusting for confounders, adolescents with CF had significantly poorer oral hygiene than controls (CF versus ASHCN odds ratio [OR] = 2.9, 95 percent confidence interval [95% CI] = 2.0 to 4.4, P<0.001; CF versus healthy OR = 1.7, 95% CI=1.3 to 2.2, P<0.001), but there was no significant difference in gingivitis (CF versus ASHCN OR=1.3, 95% CI=0.87 to 1.9, P=0.21; CF versus healthy OR = 0.80, 95% CI=0.60 to 0.99, P=0.04). Poor oral hygiene was significantly associated with gingivitis for all adolescents (CF OR=1.2, 95% CI=1.1 to 1.4, P<0.001; ASHCN OR = 1.8, 95% CI=1.6 to 2.0, P<0.001; healthy OR = 1.2, 95% CI=1.1 to 1.3, P<0.001).

Conclusions

Adolescents with CF had poorer oral hygiene than non-CF controls but similar levels of gingivitis. Future efforts should identify factors that protect adolescents with CF from gingivitis.