Use of Two Dissolvable Therapeutics Under Removable Partial Dentures: Reported Effects on Denture Comfort, Retention, and Dry Mouth Conditions

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.