Oral Manifestation and Candida Albicans in Multiple Sclerosis Disease with Different Treatment Modalities

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic demyelinating disease which is considered to be an autoimmune disease impacting the central nervous system (CNS). Patients with MS may have certain orofacial manifestations and oral microbiological changes as a result of different treatment modalities. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the changes of Candida Albicans in normal oral flora during different modalities of treatment and compare them with healthy individuals. 120 Patients were volunteered and divided into four groups, as follows: 1st group of 30 volunteers with multiple sclerosis (taking natalizumab (Tysabri), and the 2nd group of 30 individuals with multiple sclerosis (taking Betaferon). The 3rd group is 30 individuals who were recently diagnosed with MS and were in a variety of progressive stages, and the 4th group was the control. The swap samples were taken from the volunteers, particularly from the oral cavity. PCR real-time program investigated the presence of Candida Albicans. All patients were examined under standardized conditions by a single examiner, with the oral cavity being examined in an artificial light using a mouth mirror. All the collected data are detected statistically using (SPSS) ver. (22.0), the significant p-value is <0.05. The changes in the presence of Candida Albicans were highly significant. Moreover, the naive MS patient group was shown to be significant as compared to healthy individuals. Candida Albicans (p-value= 0.036), however, unexpectedly, in the Tysabri group Candida Albicans was insignificant as compared with the healthy control group, while in the Betaferon group, Candida Albicans increased. It was concluded that Oral Candida Albicans was increased in naive MS patients as compared to healthy patients. this increase indicates that oral Candida Albicans may involve in MS development. On the other hand, orofacial manifestations were decreased in all MS treatment groups.