Study Successfully Screens for Diabetes at Dental Visits Using Oral Blood

Would it be a benefit to you to be screened for diabetes at the dentist office? Read more details below and thank you for visiting Shoreline Endodontics, Groton, CT.

It is estimated that 8.1 million of the 29.1 million Americans living with diabetes are undiagnosed and many who have diabetes have poor glycemic control. Given that each year many Americans visit a dental provider but not a primary care provider, dental visits may be an opportune site for diabetes screening and monitoring glucose control for many at-risk patients.

Now, a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health, confirms that using gingival crevicular blood (GCB) for hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) testing produced values that were nearly identical to those obtained using finger stick blood (FSB), with a correlation of .991 between the two blood samples of 408 dental patients. Testing HbA1c is promoted by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) for diabetes diagnostic purposes and glycemic control monitoring.

“In light of findings from the study, the dental visit could be a useful opportunity to conduct diabetes screening among at-risk, undiagnosed patients — an important first step in identifying those who need further testing to determine their diabetes status,” said the study’s principal investigator, Dr. Shiela Strauss, associate professor of nursing and co-director of the Statistics and Data Management Core for NYU’s Colleges of Nursing and Dentistry.