Prevalence of oral manifestation in premenopausal and postmenopausal females referring to Kerman School of Dentistry

It is not only hormonal changes but also natural phenomena such as puberty, pregnancy and menopause that predispose women to many disease conditions. The aim of this study was to compare the prevalence of oral symptoms between premenopausal and post menopausal females. This was a cross sectional, descriptive-analytic study. A total of 205 women aging from 44 to 55 years who referred to the School of Dentistry Clinic at Kerman University of Medical Sciences for oral examination in the year 2007 were included. The case group consisted of 72 (35.1%) postmenopausal women. The control group included 133 (64.9%) premenopausal women. The oral manifestations considered in this study were xerostomia, taste distribution, gingival bleeding and burning mouth. The collected data were finally analyzed with t-test and chi-square using SPSS15. According to the results of this study, the most prevalent symptom in postmenopausal subjects was xerostomia (40.5%). Other oral manifestations were taste distribution (14.6%), gingival bleeding (14.6%) and burning mouth (6.3%). It was shown that taste distribution, xerostomia, and burning mouth in postmenopausal women were 3.5, 1.8, and 4.1 times more common than in premenopausal women, respectively. Moreover, it was found that premenopausal women complained of gingival bleeding more than postmenopausal women. Also the prevalence of xerostomia regardless of age was found to be significantly greater in postmenopausal women than in premenopausal women. It seems that oral symptoms are common problems in postmenopausal women. Therefore, dentists need to refer postmenopausal women with oral symptoms to a gynecologist for more careful examinations and medical interventions if necessary.