Measuring Flow Rates of Saliva for Accurate Diagnosis of Xerostomia

Abstract

Reduction of flow rate of saliva secretion causes xerostomia, which hardly compromises the quality of life of the patients. Thus, clinical diagnosis of xerostomia should be accurate and practicable to prevent and to strengthen preemptive oral health care in the early stage of xerostomia. There are two type of saliva, resting saliva and stimulated saliva, according to physical status. Because the functions of these two saliva are different, it is needed to measure the flow rates of both saliva for the diagnosis of xerostomia. The flow rate of stimulated saliva was significantly correlated with age, gender, number of sound tooth and body height. Among the healthy subjects, the multiple linear regression analysis indicated that the flow rate of stimulated saliva was correlated with body weight and gender. This indicated that the new criteria of flow rate of saliva would be needed for the therapeutic diagnosis of xerostomia.