Estimation of Salivary and Blood Glucose Level among Patients with Diabetes Mellitus – A Comparative Study

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a clinical syndrome characterized by hyperglycemia because of the absolute or relative deficiency of insulin. It requires frequent monitoring of glucose levels in the body which requires multiple pricking at regular intervals. It could be physically and psychologically traumatic to the patient. This necessitates an alternative to measure the glucose level. This study aims to correlate the salivary glucose level with the blood glucose level in diabetes patients. The cross-sectional study was conducted in 60 patients. Patients were categorized into two groups as Group A- 30 patients with diabetes and Group B- 30 healthy subjects. The blood and saliva samples were collected from the patients and the glucose levels were recorded. All these data were entered in Microsoft Excel and analyzed statistically using SPSS software. The mean (±SD) value of the random blood and salivary glucose level in diabetic patients were found to be 251.4±82.66 and 2.85±0.85 respectively and the mean blood and salivary glucose level in healthy subjects were found to be 101.12±10.14 and 0.875±0.13 respectively. There was a significant correlation between the salivary glucose levels and blood glucose levels among diabetes (p-0.00) and healthy individuals (p-0.00). From the data, the diagnostic accuracy was found to be 100%. Thus, Saliva could be used as an alternative to blood for monitoring the glucose status in diabetes patients.