Abstract:

Halitosis is a common health condition. The origin of bad breath is related to systemic conditions, but in the majority of cases – about 85%, it is related to oral factors. Our aim was to investigate the presence and degree of bad breath and to compare its incidence to oral health conditions, age, and professional hygiene. We examined 179 healthy patients with a portable sulfide monitor.

We can see that the values of bad smell in patients who come into the office for professional cleaning of the oral cavity are higher than all the studied groups. We  can safely confirm that the people who came for such a manipulation really needed cleaning. We found that professional mouth cleaning reduces bad breath values by one.

Dentures offer a reservoir for microorganisms and are associated with elevated values of halitosis. Patients with removable dentures have an average of bad breath 1.67, which is the most elevated level. Bad breath correlates to the greatest extent with age and tongue coating, but we found a correlation also with inflamed gingiva and oral-hygiene levels.