Universidad Federico Henríquez y Carvajal, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Department of clinical dentistry, School of Biomedical Sciences, Universidad Europea de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2020 Feb 3;10(1):1679. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-58675-3.
The relevance of tonsils lies not only in local but also in systemic immunity. One of the most common ailments afflicting the tonsils are palatine tonsilloliths (PT), dystrophic calcifications found in the tonsillar crypts. PT prevalence reports have been conducted for Caucasian and Asian patients, but not for black patients. The aim of this cross-sectional study is to gauge the prevalence of PT in patients who sought treatment at two university clinics in the Dominican Republic, and to analyze any links with the race of patients. Two hundred and nine consecutive patients attending the dental services of two clinics located in different cities in the Dominican Republic, from March 1 to April 30, 2019, were selected. Computed tomography scans of patients were evaluated for a PT diagnosis. Determined prevalence of PT in this population sample was 5.85%. A non-significant relationship between occurrence of PT and race or kind of health service utilized was found. Nonetheless, more white patients used private health clinics while more black patients used the public health system. Previous tonsillitis was the only factor showing a significant correlation with the occurrence of PT. Also, PT prevalence was significantly higher in patients under 40 years of age. General prevalence of PT was significantly lower than reported in previous studies involving other countries/races. Considering the limitations of this study, when comparing it to a previous similar study and taking into account the Asian- and Caucasian-centric results obtained, a race influence on prevalence of calcifications may be suggested. Despite our results showing no racial differences within the Dominican Republic, black patients appear to present a lower prevalence of PT than Caucasian and Asian patients.
扁桃体的相关性不仅在于局部，还在于全身免疫。扁桃体最常见的疾病之一是扁桃体结石（PT），这是在扁桃体隐窝中发现的营养不良性钙化。已经对白人患者和亚洲患者进行了扁桃体结石的患病率报告，但尚未对黑人患者进行报告。本横断面研究的目的是评估在多米尼加共和国的两所大学诊所接受治疗的患者中扁桃体结石的患病率，并分析其与患者种族之间的任何关联。2019 年 3 月 1 日至 4 月 30 日，选择了 209 名连续在多米尼加共和国两个不同城市的诊所接受牙科服务的患者。对患者的计算机断层扫描进行了评估，以诊断是否存在扁桃体结石。在该人群样本中，扁桃体结石的确定患病率为 5.85％。未发现扁桃体结石的发生与种族或所使用的医疗服务类型之间存在显著关系。尽管如此，更多的白人患者使用私人医疗诊所，而更多的黑人患者使用公共医疗系统。过去的扁桃体炎是与发生扁桃体结石唯一具有显著相关性的因素。此外，40 岁以下的患者中扁桃体结石的患病率明显更高。总体上，扁桃体结石的患病率明显低于涉及其他国家/种族的先前研究报告。考虑到本研究的局限性，与之前的类似研究进行比较，并考虑到获得的以亚洲人和白种人为中心的结果，可能表明种族对钙化的患病率有影响。尽管我们的研究结果表明在多米尼加共和国内部没有种族差异，但黑人患者的扁桃体结石患病率似乎低于白人和亚洲患者。
