Cross-sectional study of DMFT index in children and adolescents (9-18 years old) with type 1 diabetes, compared with healthy children in Ilam in 1399

Diabetes  mellitus is a group of metabolic diseases characterized by high blood sugar levels (due to insufficient insulin production or insulin resistance, or both). The aim of this study was to evaluate the status of DMFT index in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes in comparison with healthy children in Ilam province.

The study is a comparative study. The sample size for this study was 160 cases  including all children and adolescents aged 9-18 years, 80 patients with type 1 diabetes (case group) and 80 healthy cases (control group) who were similar in age and sex. A written consent and a researcher-made questionnaire were completed by the two groups. The analysis was performed using chi-square, independent t-test, and correlation coefficient in SPSS 22 and Graphpad Prism8 software.

The mean age of the subjects was 13.4±3 in the diabetic group and 12.8±2.9 years in the healthy group. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups (P> 0.05). The number of DMFT teeth in children with type 1 diabetes was significantly higher than healthy children (P <0.05). There was a significant relationship between the number of decayed teeth and HbA1c (r = 0.3, P = 0.004). Also, there is a direct and statistically significant relationship between DMFT and HbA1c (r = 0.36, P = 0.001).

In this study (DMFT) was higher in the diabetic group than in the healthy group. A direct correlation was also  seen between HBA1C and (DMFT).