Candida Carriers among Individuals with Tongue Piercing-A Real-Time PCR Study.

Among the local factors for oral candidiasis, the piercing of the tongue is recognized by some authors as a risk factor for the colonization of . There are few case reports in which spp. colonization and infection are associated with tongue piercing but only one microbiological study supports this hypothesis in general. The aim of this study was to examine this possible association between the presence of both tongue piercing and spp. in healthy individuals. Positive results for tongue colonization with spp. were found in four (12.9%) of the tongue-pierced subjects and in three (9.67%) subjects of the control group ( = 0.550). All samples were identified as . The univariate and logistic regression analyses of possible risk factors for tongue colonization revealed that gender ( = 0.024), smoking more than 10 cigarettes per day ( = 0.021), and improper hygiene ( = 0.028) were statistically significant influencing factors in the multivariate analysis. The results suggest that the piercing of the tongue is not a risk factor for colonization of spp.