Evaluation of an oral moisture-checking device for screening dry mouth

Yosuke Fukushima, Tetsuya Yoda, Shoichiro Kokabu, Ryuichiro Araki, Tsubasa Murata, Yoshimasa Kitagawa, Ken Omura, Shuji Toya, Kayoko Ito, Saori Funayama, Hiroshi Iwabuchi, Kazuhiro Asano, Yutaka Imai, Akihide Negishi, Satoshi Yokoo, Goichi Matsumoto, Eiro Kubota, Hideki Watanabe, Mikio Kusama, Kojiro Onizawa, Takuya Goto, Seiji Nakamura, Ryuichi Nakazawa, Kiyoshi Harada, Takashi Fujibayashi

Community Health Science Center, Saitama Medical University, Saitama, Japan.
Department of Dentistry and Oral Surgery, Tochigi National Hospital, Tochigi, Japan.
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Division of Medicine, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Medicine and Engi- neering, Univer-sity of Yamanashi, Kofu and Tamaho, Japan.
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Dokkyo Medical University School of Medicine, Tochigi, Japan.
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Sai-tama Medical University, Saitama, Japan.
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan.
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Jichi Medical University, Tochigi, Japan.
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Kanagawa Dental College, Yokosuka, Japan.
Department of Stomatology and Oral Surgery, Gunma University Graduate School of Medicine, Maebashi, Japan.
Division of Gereatric Dentistry, Niigata University Medical & Dental Hospital, Niigata, Japan.
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Dry Mouth Clinic, The Nippon Dental University Niigata Hospital, Niigata, Japan.
Oral Diagnosis and Medicine, Department of Oral Pathobiological Science, Graduate School of Dental Medicine, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
Oral Surgery, Department of Oral Restitution, Division of Oral Health Sciences, Graduate School, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan.
Section of Oral and Maxillofacial Oncology, Division of Maxillofacial Diagnostic and Surgical Sciences, Faculty of Dental Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.

DOI: 10.4236/ojst.2013.38073                

Abstract

Objective: This multicenter clinical study was to assess the clinical usability of an oral moisture-checking device in detecting the dry mouth patients and evaluating the optimal measurement site. Materials and Methods: The study group comprised 250 patients with dry mouth and 241 healthy volunteer subjects at 13 medical centers. This device was used to measure the moisture degrees of the lingual mucosa and the buccal mucosa. Subjective oral dryness, objective oral dryness, and saliva flow rates were also compared between the two groups. For statistical analysis, receiver-operating characteristic analysis was performed to calculate the area under the curve (AUC). Results: The moisture degree of the lingual mucosa was significantly lower in the dry mouth group (27.2 ± 4.9) than that in the healthy group (29.5 ± 3.1, AUC = 0.653). When a lingual mucosa moisture degree of 31.0 or higher was defined as normal, less than 27.0 as dry mouth, and 27.0 to less than 31.0 as borderline zone of dry mouth, both the sensitivity and the specificity for the diagnosis of dry mouth were close to 80%. Conclusion: These results suggest that the oral moisture-checking device is a usable screening device for dry mouth.

Keywords

Dry Mouth; Oral Moisture-Checking Device; ROC Analysis

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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