Preventive
Praneeti Sodhi, DDS
Pediatric resident
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV
University of Nevada,Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
William Buhler, DDS
UNLV
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
Karl Kingsley, phd
Professor of Biomedical Sciences
School of Dental Medicine University of Nevada, Las vegas
las vegas, Nevada, United States
Clinical COVID-19 Mouthwashing Protocol May Modulate Oral Selenomonas Noxia Prevalence
Praneeti Sodhi, Summer Lin, Yuxin Jiang, Katherine Howard, Karl Kingsley, Victoria Sullivan
Purpose: SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic changed dental office protocols to include an extended period of mouthwashing (60 seconds) to reduce detectable oral virus. However, no research has evaluated effects on other oral pathogens, such as the newly-identified periodontal pathogen, Selenomonas noxia. The purpose of this project was to determine any measurable effects among pediatric patients.
Methods: Clinical samples were obtained using an approval protocol to collect two sequential samples on the same visit - before and after chlorhexidine mouthwash (Sample A, Sample B). A third sample (Sample C) was taken upon recall two to eight weeks later. DNA was isolated and screened using qPCR and validated primers for S. noxia.
Results: A total of N=48 pre-, post-mouthwash and recall samples were collected. Screening of the isolated DNA revealed n=4/48 or 8.3% pre-mouthwash (Sample A) isolates tested positive for S. noxia among the pre-mouthwash (Sample A) with and n=0 testing positive among the post-mouthwash (Sample B) isolates. Recall sample screening (Sample C) revealed n=6 (12.5%) were S. noxia-positive.
Discussion/
Conclusions: This study provides new evidence for oral S. noxia in a significant percentage of clinical pediatric saliva samples. In addition, these data also suggest that the COVID-19 protocol of mouth washing prior to clinical treatment may temporarily reduce the levels of detectable S. noxia - but may alter oral prevalence over time. More studies will be needed to determine if the mouthwashing protocol was the major contributing factor to the increased prevalence observed.
One sentence summary: The mouth washing protocol for COVID-19 may have short-term effects on the levels of detectable oral pathogens, including Selenomas noxia - although it is unclear if these effects extend to the long-term.
Key words: Salivary screening, Selenomonas noxia, qPCR, prevalence