Sin Ioana Andreea¹ and Draghici Raluca²

¹Resident, Department of Oro-Facial Surgery, Emergency County Hospital "Sfantul Spiridon" Iasi, Romania
²Assistant Professor, Department of Prosthodontics, Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, Romania

*Corresponding Author: Draghici Raluca, Assistant Professor, Department of Prosthodontics, Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, Romania.

Received: April 21, 2025; Published: April 29, 2025

Abstract

Background: Edentulism is a condition that is more prevalent in the aging population and it results from both oral pathological factors and the systemic aging process. Masticatory efficiency refers to the ability to triturate food effectively into smaller parts and is a key indicator of oral function. There are several methods for assessing masticatory function and neuromuscular coordination including gnathodynamometers, electromyography and measurements of mandibular range of motion. However, the chewing gum test remains one of the most accessible methods. The goal of this study was to objectively evaluate the difference in masticatory efficiency between two groups: dentate individuals and completely edentulous patients treated with conventional dentures.

Methods: In this study the two-color chewing gum method was used with chewing-gum specimens analyzed both subjectively by two examinators and objectively by measuring images captured with a smartphone camera via dedicated software.

Results: The study revealed significant differences between the two groups in both objective measurements and subjective scores. The Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) was 0.913 indicating excellent agreement between the two evaluators. The small p-value (p = 4.15e-09) suggests that the observed ICC is statistically significant, meaning that the agreement between the examiners is unlikely to be due to chance. Both assessment methods successfully distinguished between the two groups, though the subjective evaluation method demonstrated superior discriminative capacity. There are still several elderly patients who maintain a relatively good masticatory efficiency possibly due to well-adapted dentures.

Conclusion: This study is consistent with the challenges faced by edentulous patients in terms of chewing function, as prosthetic devices may not restore the masticatory function of natural teeth. The chewing gum test proved to be a reliable, non-invasive, and practical method for assessing and monitoring masticatory function in complete denture wearers, with value in both clinical and research settings. Among the assessment tools, the subjective method showed greater sensitivity in distinguishing between dentate and edentulous individuals.

Keywords: Two-Color Chewing Gum Test; Masticatory Efficiency; Edentulism; Dental Diagnostic

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Citation

Citation: Sin Ioana Andreea and Draghici Raluca. “Clinical Evaluation of Masticatory Efficiency in Edentulous Patients Using a Two-Color Chewing Gum Test".Acta Scientific Dental Sciences 9.5 (2025): 42-53.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2025 Sin Ioana Andreea and Draghici Raluca. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.