Candida albicans Adherence to Glass Ionomer Restorative Dental Material

BACKGROUND AND AIMS It is believed that adherence of Candida albicans to oral surfaces is a critical event in the coloni-zation and development of oral diseases such as candida-associated denture stomatitis. Although there is considerable infor-mation about the adherence of Candida albicans to buccal epithelial cells and prosthetic materials, there is very little infor-mation available about the adherence of Candida albicans to glass ionomer materials. The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree of Candida albicans adherence to glass ionomer restorative material. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this experimental study adherence of Candida albicans strains was studied with and without human whole saliva. First, glass ionomer fragments were prepared; then yeast cells were inoculated and incubated with differ-ent incubation times. After incubation, the fragments were removed from the wells and stained with 0.1% calcofluor white. Adhesion was quantified by counting the total number of cells at 40, 80 and 120 minutes. The analysis of variance and Stu-dent's test were used to assess the significance of differences between the means. RESULTS In the absence of saliva, the adherence of Candida albicans showed an increase, reaching a maximum at the end of the experiment (120 minutes). However, in the presence of saliva, the adherence of Candida albicans to glass ionomer significantly decreased. CONCLUSION The presence of human whole saliva is an important factor in the adherence of Candida albicans to glass ion-omer restorative material.