Periodontal pathogens recovered from oral mucous membranes of edentulous individuals

Objective: In the oral cavity, bacteria colonize different surfaces and thus far, few studies have considered the presence of periodontal pathogens in oral mucous membranes of edentulous individuals. Thus, this study investigated the colonization of C. rectus, P. gingivalis, A. actinomycetemcomitans, P. intermedia and T. forsythia in the tongue and cheek of newborns and elderly individuals with no teeth.

Methods: Seventy-four edentulous subjects were included in this cross-sectional study. Microbiological samples were taken from the dorsum of the tongue and cheek mucosa of all individuals and analyzed using a bacterial DNA-specific PCR. The frequencies of the presence of bacterial species in the tongue and cheek were assessed by the Chi-squared test. The presence of all bacteria in each group was evaluated by the Kruskal-Wallis test. Results were determined to be statistically significant at p < 0.05.

Results: C. rectus was the most prevalent species in both groups (20.90% in the cheek of newborns and 77.40% in the tongue of elderly subjects). P. gingivalis and P. intermedia were not detected in any of 43 newborns, although P. gingivalis was recovered from the tongue and the cheek (3.2%) of elderly individuals, while P.intermedia was detected in the tongue (9.6%) and the cheek (3.2%) of elderly individuals. T. forsythia was detected in newborns as well as elderly patients, although the highest prevalence was observed in the tongue of newborns (6.90%) and elderly (9.60%) individuals. A. actinomycetemcomitans was not found in the tongue of newborns, but we observed A. actinomycetemcomitans in the cheek (2.30%) of newborns and in the tongue (12.90%) and cheek (6.40%) of elderly patients.

Conclusions: According to the pattern of microbial colonization of oral mucous membranes, dentists should direct more attention to edentulous individuals to prevent initial colonization of natural teeth and dental implants by periodontal pathogens.