Older removable denture wearing adults suffer from a complex set of oral health
challenges, with relatively few solutions identified at this time. This is substantiated
by statistics concerning the geriatric population on the correlation of poor oral health
and the degradation of an individual's overall quality of life. The most recent National
Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data found that 1 in 8 U.S. adults over the age
of 65 are completely edentulous. A shift from complete edentulism to partial edentulism
was also seen in this survey data, as the average individual over 65 had only 21 teeth
remaining. Thus, partial edentulism remains a significant burden on seniors as well.
Clearly, there exists both a great need and desire for improved implementation of proven
oral-health strategies among this population, as well as the development of new
preventive interventions and minimally invasive treatment strategies beyond traditional
denture adhesive products.
This proposed clinical trial intends to investigate two such potential treatment aids. In
follow-up from our recent pilot study investigating MI Paste's application on the
intaglio of complete dentures, in which our current findings have shown that the use of
MI Paste can predictably increase the buffering capacity of a patient's saliva, our
current proposal targets to further increase the study's sample size to improve the
statistical power regarding subjective patient reports.
The primary aims of this proposed study are to collect further data on how MI Paste
affects patients' subjective evaluations of the comfort and retention of their denture,
as well as dry mouth symptoms in patients reporting xerostomia.
Furthermore, this study will include a second therapeutic intervention, Biotene Dry Mouth
Gel (OTC), which will provide an additional contrast variable involving patient
preferences regarding therapeutics under their removable prostheses. We hypothesize that
the use of both therapeutics underneath removable dentures will provide added retention
and stability to the prosthesis on patient reports, further coinciding with improved
evaluations of comfort and function. Additionally, we hypothesize that the subjective
improvements in patients self-reporting xerostomia will be of a statistically greater
magnitude than those noticed by patients with normal salivary function, as xerostomia has
been associated with increased denture discomfort in past literature.