TITLE:
Evaluation of an oral moisture-checking device for screening dry mouth
AUTHORS:
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
KEYWORDS:
Dry Mouth; Oral Moisture-Checking Device; ROC Analysis
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Stomatology,
Vol.3 No.8,
November
18,
2013
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.