Background: Gaucher disease (GD) is one of the most prevalent autosomal recessive lysosomal storage diseases. Dental caries is commonly encountered in the pediatric age. The current study aimed to evaluate the association between salivary bacteriological findings, immunoglobulins levels, and dental caries in children with GD. The current case-control study included 55 children with GD and 40 age and sex-matched siblings of the included patients served as the control group. Dental caries was diagnosed and graded according to WHO criteria. Collected saliva was examined for bacteriological findings and salivary immunoglobulins: sIgA and sIgG.
Results: Comparison between patients and controls revealed significantly lower frequency of dental caries in the patients' group (65.5 % versus 90.0 %, p=0.007) as well as significantly lower dental caries severity scores as compared to controls. In addition, patients had significantly higher sIgA [median (IQR): 1880.0 (1440.0-2250.0) versus 1000.0 (0.0-2172.5) mg/L, p= 0.002] and sIgG [median(IQR): 24.0 (13.0-28.0) versus 11.5 (4.5-23.5) mg/L, p= 0.002] levels when compared with healthy siblings. GD patients with dental caries had significantly lower sIgA levels as compared with patients without dental caries [median (IQR): 1655.0 (777.5- 1947.5) versus 2050.0 (1890.0- 2660.0) mg/L, p= 0.001]. Multivariate logistic regression analysis recognized low sIgA levels as a predictor of dental caries in the studied patients [OR (95% CI): 1.002 (1.001-1.003), p=0.012].
Conclusions: Increased sIgA levels in children with GD probably contribute to their protection against dental caries.