Little is known about patient perception of paediatric oral medicine services offered in relation to these conditions. The concept of a diary is increasingly recognised as a valuable way to capture patient events and perspective in healthcare research.

This article provides the background to the use of solicited diaries as a method of accessing the perspective of children and young people and describes a service evaluation that aimed to explore the experiences of young people with chronic oral ulcers attending the paediatric oral medicine clinic in a UK Dental Hospital. Chronic oral ulcers were found to significantly impact on a variety of physical and psychosocial aspects of young Trametinib manufacturer people’s lives. Overall, feedback regarding the specialist service was positive but suggestions were Lumacaftor made for

improvements. This article reviews the use of the solicited diary within healthcare research. It also illustrates the value of the diary in exploration of children and young people’s perspective on their chronic oral mucosal disease. In addition, a need for further research in this area has been highlighted. “
“International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry 2012; 22: 363–368 Background.  Effective caries control and management requires identification of susceptible children for timely intervention. Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) is an important biomarker of caries risk. Aim.  This study aimed to comparatively evaluate the validities of a novel immunoassay and a conventional culture-based assay in detecting salivary S. mutans in a paediatric cohort. Methods.  190 children aged 3–4 years were recruited. The abundance of S. mutans in their saliva samples was analysed with three assay systems viz. a conventional culture-based assay (Dentocult SM), a novel immunoassay system (Saliva-Check MUTANS) based on monoclonal antibody technology and a Taqman

real-time PCR assay taken as a gold standard. Results.  The novel immunoassay accurately differentiated saliva samples with high (≥5 × 105 CFU/mL) and low (<5 × 105 CFU/mL) S. mutans levels. The sensitivity/specificity was 97.6%/90.6%. The conventional culture-based assay reached a reasonably high sensitivity/specificity (92.8%/81.3%) in identifying PD184352 (CI-1040) children with moderate (≥104 CFU/mL) S. mutans level. Its sensitivity/ specificity in selecting children with high (≥105 CFU/mL) and very high (>106 CFU/mL) S. mutans levels were not sufficient (78.7%/79.8% and 25.8%/91.8%, respectively). Conclusion.  The monoclonal antibody-based immunoassay accurately and rapidly determines S. mutans abundance in saliva and could be useful for chairside assessment of children’s caries risk. “
“Childhood obesity, dental caries, and periodontal disease are major public health problems due to their adverse impact on the growth and development of children. To examine the association between nutritional status, oral health, and lifestyle habits among schoolchildren in Serbia.