Incidence of dental caries in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia is related to the therapy used

Abstract

Dental caries is an infectious disease and it may be harmful for children suffering from leukemia. DMFS, DMFT scores of forty-five children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) were significantly higher than in healthy age-and-sex-matched controls after cessation of therapy. The children with CNS irradiation had higher DMFT (7.13 than children with only chemotherapy (3.4) and the controls (1.8). Lifelong caries incidence showed that children with ALL had 2.7 new caries lesions per year during the therapy compared to the 1.1 (p < 0.05) new lesions in controls. More detailed analysis of permanent anterior teeth at the age of twelve years showed that all patient groups had more filled anterior teeth than controls (p < 0.001); and children with bone marrow transplantation had significantly more fillings than the other two groups.