Journal of Oral Health and Oral Epidemiology
Volume:6 Issue: 2, Spring 2017

Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a chronic, autoimmune, inflammatory disease. The progression of OLP to oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) has generated a longstanding controversy about the details of this malignant transformation potential. This study aimed to do a systematic review on the molecular markers related to the malignant transformation of OLP.
We searched the databases PubMed, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Scopus, Cochrane and Thomson Reuters Web of Science (1990-2015) with the MeSH key words of: (“oral lichenoid reaction”, “oral lichenoid lesion”, “oral lichenoid eruption”, “oral lichen planus” “lichen planus”, “lichenoid”) AND (“malignant transformation”, “premalignant character”, “cancerization”, “pre-neoplasm”, “squamous cell carcinoma”). The reviewers screened the identified publications in three steps according to title, abstract and full text, extracted all the investigated markers in screened articles and finally classified the markers according to the frequency. Extracted data were saved in Excel software.
Out of 570 articles, 66 were finally enrolled in the study. The most frequent evaluated markers were p53, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), Ki67, B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2), Bax, p21, and caspase-3.
The present study concluded that there were some documented evidences for association between malignant transformation of OLP and seven molecular markers (p53, COX-2, Ki67, Bcl-2, Bax, p21, and caspase-3).

Early childhood caries (ECC) is a multifactorial disease and several factors are implicated in its establishment. Considering the numerous problems those children with ECC face and the important role of parents in preventing them, the aim of this study was to evaluate the mothers’ awareness about ECC in Yasuj, Iran.
It was a cross-sectional study. The study population included 384 mothers of children below 6 years, who were randomly selected from the children referring to 4 urban healthcare centers. The data were collected using a 30-item questionnaire to assess mothers’ awareness about definition, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of ECC. The face and content validities of the questionnaire were confirmed by pediatric dentists and experts in questionnaire design. Its reliability was confirmed with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.73. Descriptive (mean, standard deviation, frequency) and analytic statistics (Spearman correlation coefficient) were used for data analysis.
The mean age of children was 2.45 ± 1.46 years while the mean age of mothers was 29.71 ± 5.04 years. Almost half of the mothers had high school education, while others had higher degrees. Mothers’ awareness about ECC was poor in 20.8% of the cases, moderate in 62.2% of the cases, and good in 16.9% of the cases. It was observed that mother’s awareness about ECC had statistically significant direct relationships with both mother’s age and education. Based on multivariate linear regression, mother’s age (β = 0.17, P = 0.0001) and their education (β = 0.20, P = 0.0001) had significantly direct relation with mother’s awareness, too.
Considering the undesirable ECC awareness level in the majority of Yasujian mothers and its association with mothers’ educations, the implementation of interventions to increase mothers’ awareness seems essential in this regard.

Halitosis is an unpleasant disorder and a common phenomenon in people. The study aim was evaluation of halitosis using Halitosis Associated Life Quality Test questionnaires (HALT) and the Etiquette checker device.
The questionnaires were given to 345 individuals who referred to the Kerman Dental School and dental clinics, Kerman, Iran. At the same time, their halitosis was evaluated by Etiquette checker device. T-test analysis, chi-squared, one way analysis of variance, Fisher’s exact test and SPSS were used.
The prevalence of halitosis was 54%. The analysis of the collected data showed that halitosis in women was more than men (P = 0.86), this disorder was more in individuals older than 35 in comparison with younger people (P = 0.01). This study showed that a significant relationship existed between the HALT score and the Etiquette score.
There was a significant relation between self-estimated halitosis and higher Etiquette score, therefore HALT questionnaire can be a valid device for evaluating the life quality especially for halitosis.

The sense of taste is a chemical sense which allows everyone to perceive the flavor of what is eaten or drunk. Also, the sense of olfaction is also a chemical sense contributing to the sense of taste to perceive the taste and flavor of food. In the present work, the gustatory and olfactory function in pre- and postmenopausal women and men were studied and compared to each other.
Fifty postmenopausal women, 50 age-matched men, 50 young women and 50 young men were evaluated in this study and enrolled through simple sampling method. The aim of this study was explained for patients and in case of their consent, they were given the questionnaire. Taste threshold for each of the four main tastes for all of the participants in the study was determined at one step between 8 am to 11 am while they had not consumed any food since one hour before the test. The whole mouth taste method was used in this study. Also, the Davidson and Murphy tests were performed and the quality identification and intensity ratings of olfaction were measured.
Three individuals among the postmenopausal women group and 2 old men were not able to detect sweet taste even in high concentration; in the group of young men, one man was not able to detect bitter taste even in high concentration. This study showed that 2% of postmenopausal women and 4% of matched men were not able to detect the odor of isopropanol even at a concentration of 70% and there was a significant relationship between odor perception of isopropanol and olfactory intensity between the two groups of pre- and postmenopausal women as well as men.
Taste dysfunction directly influences nutritional status. In this study, the strength of the sweet taste perception was significantly lower among women after menopause; however, there was no significant difference between the perception of other tastes among postmenopausal women and men of same age.

Early childhood caries (ECC) is a multifactorial disease and several factors are implicated in its establishment. Considering the numerous problems those children with ECC face and the important role of parents in preventing them, the aim of this study was to evaluate the mothers’ awareness about ECC in Yasuj, Iran.
It was a cross-sectional study. The study population included 384 mothers of children below 6 years, who were randomly selected from the children referring to 4 urban healthcare centers. The data were collected using a 30-item questionnaire to assess mothers’ awareness about definition, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of ECC. The face and content validities of the questionnaire were confirmed by pediatric dentists and experts in questionnaire design. Its reliability was confirmed with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.73. Descriptive (mean, standard deviation, frequency) and analytic statistics (Spearman correlation coefficient) were used for data analysis.
The mean age of children was 2.45 ± 1.46 years while the mean age of mothers was 29.71 ± 5.04 years. Almost half of the mothers had high school education, while others had higher degrees. Mothers’ awareness about ECC was poor in 20.8% of the cases, moderate in 62.2% of the cases, and good in 16.9% of the cases. It was observed that mother’s awareness about ECC had statistically significant direct relationships with both mother’s age and education. Based on multivariate linear regression, mother’s age (β = 0.17, P = 0.0001) and their education (β = 0.20, P = 0.0001) had significantly direct relation with mother’s awareness, too.
Considering the undesirable ECC awareness level in the majority of Yasujian mothers and its association with mothers’ educations, the implementation of interventions to increase mothers’ awareness seems essential in this regard.

Parents have an important role in making decisions about their children's oral health problems and their awareness of children’s oral health status may affect their care-seeking behaviors. The aims of this study were to determine parental awareness about the presence and absence of dental caries in preschool children and factors associated with their awareness.
The participants of this cross-sectional study were 3 to 6-year-old children and their parents who were recruited from 10 randomly selected kindergartens in Shiraz, Iran. Normative and perceived caries status of the children was assessed through a dental examination and parental assessment, respectively. Parent's awareness was determined by comparing their perception of presence and absence of caries (perceived status) and the actual caries status of their child (normative status). Factors associated with parental awareness were determined using univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses.
Among the 396 parents, who completed the questionnaire, 56% were aware of presence and 76% were aware of absence of caries. Awareness of presence was associated with children’s previous dental visit (P Many parents were not aware of the presence of dental caries, which may result in them deferring the seeking of care for their children. Having a dental visit increased parental awareness. Regular dental visits, therefore, should be promoted for young children for early detection of dental caries and to enhance parental awareness of children’s oral health condition.

Foods containing carbohydrates have a major effect on the pathogenesis of dental caries. There is a direct correlation between frequency of consumption of foods containing sugar and dental caries. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the dietary patterns of 12-year-old children and their awareness about the effect of diet on oral health in Iran.
A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 1554 children aged 12 years in 5 provinces in Iran. Subjects were selected based on a multistage stratified cluster random sampling procedure. Data were collected by a culturally adapted questionnaire that included demographic data (such as sex, age, parents’ job and education, and area), and questions about the frequency of consumption of cariogenic and non-cariogenic foods during the previous week.
The mean score of diet-related behavior was 17.5 ± 5.9 (from 40). Approximately, 31.0% of children ate sweet foods (chocolate/cake/biscuit/chips), and 39.4% drank soft drinks (sugared tea or coffee or milked/soda/syrup) more than once a day, while 15 percent of children consumed fresh fruit and raw vegetables more than once a day. Students living in urban areas had higher scores in diet-related behavior (18.3 ± 5.4 vs. 16.1 ± 6.4, P The results showed that dietary patterns was not satisfactory, and the level of consumption of cariogenic foods was high. Study findings recommend that school-based oral health programs should be designed for modifying the dietary habits in Iran.

One of the methods to measure scientific achievement in a particular field is bibliometric analysis of scientific publications. The main goals of this study were bibliometric analysis of Iranian periodontal literature, study design, and topics investigated in periodontal research published from 1995 to 2015 in PubMed.
PubMed search strategy was developed to identify all the international papers published in the field of periodontology (periodontics) by the Iranian scientists between 1995 and 2015. We performed the search protocol by typing “periodont*” in the title/abstract search box, and also the word “Iran” in the affiliation search box. We reviewed all the abstracts and removed the unrelated articles from the study. Retrieved data were analyzed using SPSS.
Total of 178 papers from 83 peer-reviewed journals were found from the PubMed database and were reviewed. Seventy articles (37.4%) were published in Iranian PubMed indexed journals, and 117 (62.6%) papers were published in the journals of other countries. According to the publication type of the articles, 173 (92.5%) of them were original research papers, 6 articles (3.2%) were review papers, and 5 papers (2.7%) were case reports. The results indicated that maximum number of articles was published in 2013. The most frequent article types were cross-sectional studies (29.9%) followed by clinical trials (22.5%) and case-control studies (18.7%).
In recent years, the periodontal research production has made significant progress in Iran. It seems that the Iranian periodontists should emphasize more on the design and quality of works in addition to the quantity of articles.