Total antioxidant capacity of saliva and its relation with early childhood caries and rampant caries.

Dental caries is an infectious and communicable disease and multiple factors influence the initiation and progression of the disease. Recently it has been claimed that oxidative stress may play an important role in the onset and the development of several inflammatory oral pathologies and dental caries may also be included. Saliva could constitute a first line of defense against free radical- mediated oxidative stress. This is the reason why antioxidant capacity of saliva has led to increasing interest and hence the need for this study. The antioxidant capacity of saliva was investigated in 100 children who were divided into four groups. Two of which comprised the study and control groups of children with ECC (below 71 months of age) and the other two groups comprised of the study and control groups of the children with rampant caries [(RC) (6-12 yrs)]. Unstimulated saliva samples were collected from all the groups. Total antioxidant capacity of saliva was evaluated by spectrophotometric assay. The results indicated that the total antioxidant capacity (TAC) of saliva increased in children with caries. TAC also increased with the age of the children.