Questionnaire-based study on sleep-disorder breathing amongst edentulous subjects in a university oral health centre

A selection of abstracts of clinically relevant papers from other journals. The abstracts on this page have been chosen and edited by John R. Radford.

Abstract

Those subjects who removed their dentures at night reported an increased experience of sleep-disorder breathing although this was not statistically significant.

Main

Park JH, Less SH et al. Int J Prosthodont 2010; 23: 503–506

The removal of full dentures at night minimises denture-induced stomatitis. Yet it has been suggested that such an oral health preventative practice could result in upper airway collapse and sleep-disorder breathing (SDB). Using a questionnaire, this observational study compared SDP in 37 subjects who removed their dentures and 25 subjects who wore their dentures at night. The questionnaire (Berlin questionnaire), comprised ten questions and the results of which were used to categorise subjects into either a high or low risk group for SDB. Almost 30% of those who wore their dentures at night were in the low risk group for SDP, whereas 20.0% were in the high risk group (not significant).