Journal of Dental Medicine

Background and Aim: A strong causal relationship exists between cigarette smoking and development of oral squamous cell carcinoma, so oral screening using exfoliative cytology has been recommended to facilitate the early diagnosis of cellular alterations in oral mucosa and silver staining (AgNOR technique) has been proven to be of value in the detection of incipient cellular alterations. The purpose of this study was to compare the argyrophilic nucleolar regions (AgNORs) count of cells collected from normal mucosa of cigarette smokers with that obtained from non- smokers.

Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, cytologic smears of normal tongue, buccal mucosa and floor of the mouth from 19 smokers and 19 non- smokers were stained for AgNORs. The AgNORs count was established on 100 cells. The count value of groups were compared and analyzed using the Levens, Paired T, Student and Factorial tests. Using P<0.05 as the limit of significance.

Results: The AgNORs were round and had a clustered distribution in both groups. The mean AgNORs count was statistically higher in cells of smokers than non- smokers (P<0.05). There was a significant difference between smears from the floor of the mouth and other anatomical sites in both groups. In this study, no correlation was found between AgNORs count and gender.

Conclusion: Analysis of AgNORs suggests that there might be a correlation between the smoking habit and an increased rate of cellular proliferation in the oral mucosal cells.

Background and Aims: Increasing demands for health care's services on one hand and limited resources on the other hand brings about pressure over governments to find out a mechanism for fair and appropriate distribution of resources. Economic analysis is one of the appropriate tools for policy making on this priority. The aim of this study was to assess capital and consumption of oral health units of health care centers in Yazd city and comparing it with revenue of these centers and determining of cost effectiveness.
Materials and Methods: In this descriptive cross sectional study, all health care centers of Yazd city with active dentistry department were evaluated.  The data has been extracted from current documents in health care center of county based issued receipts and daily information registers.
Results: Expended cost for providing of oral hygiene services in second half of 2008 in 13 medical health centers of Yazd included active dentistry section was 557.887.500 Rials and revenue to cost ratio was about 34%. The most provided service was related to tooth extraction and the average of tooth restoration in each working day was 0.48.
Conclusion: With attention to low tariffs of dentistry services in medical health centers and paying subsidy to target groups, expenses of oral hygiene are always more than its revenue.