Mercury exposure from dental amalgam: a 6 month follow-up

Hye-Jin Baek; Youn-Hee Choi; Joon Sakong; Young-Eun Lee; Hee-Kyung Lee; Myoung Uk Jin; Keun-Bae Song

doi:10.11149/jkaoh.2012.36.4.297

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Baek, Choi, Sakong, Lee, Lee, Jin, and Song: Mercury exposure from dental amalgam: a 6 month follow-up

Original Article

Journal of Korean Academy of Oral Health

Journal of Korean Academy of Oral Health 2012; 36(4): 297-302.

Published online: 28 December 2012

DOI: https://doi.org/10.11149/jkaoh.2012.36.4.297

Mercury exposure from dental amalgam: a 6 month follow-up

Hye-Jin Baek¹, Youn-Hee Choi¹, Joon Sakong², Young-Eun Lee³, Hee-Kyung Lee⁴, Myoung Uk Jin⁵, Keun-Bae Song¹

¹Department of Preventive Dentistry, Kyungpook National University School of Dentistry, Daegu, Korea.

²Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Yeungnam University College of Medicine, Daegu, Korea.

³Department of Dental Hygiene, Daegu Health College, Daegu, Korea.

⁴Department of Dentistry, Yeungnam University College of Medicine, Daegu, Korea.

⁵Department of Conservative Dentistry, Kyungpook National University School of Dentistry, Daegu, Korea.

Corresponding Author: Youn-Hee Choi. Department of Preventive Dentistry, Kyungpook National University School of Dentistry, 2-188-1 Samduk-dong, Jung-gu, Daegu 700-412, Korea. Tel: +82-53-660-6875, Fax: +82-53-423-2947, cyh1001@knu.ac.kr

Received 13 September 2012 Revised 12 October 2012 Accepted 28 October 2012

(open-access):

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objectives

Dental amalgam is a widely used filling material for oral cavity. The released mercury vapor from amalgam could have systemic adverse effects potentially. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationship between dental amalgam and urinary mercury levels in children during a 6-month timespan.

Methods

A total of 525 elementary school children participated in this study. Oral examination was carried out from one dentist. Urine samples collected at baseline and at 6 month were analyzed for mercury and creatinine excretion. Additionally, general characteristics of subjects were surveyed by a questionnaire. The statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS 18.0.

Results

Greater amalgam surfaces were associated to higher urinary mercury levels; this tendency was similar at the 6-month observation after the correct baseline data. In the multivariable model, urinary mercury excretion was only associated with amalgam surfaces positively.

Conclusions

Even a small amount of mercury uptake from dental amalgam has been associated to increase the mercury concentration of urine.

Keywords: Children, Dental amalgam, Mercury, Urine

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Urinary mercury levels according to number of amalgam surface at 6 month after adjusted of baseline mercury level.

Table 1

General characteristics of study participants

^*There were missing values.

Values are number (%).

Table 2

Urine mercury levels according to amalgam surfaces at baseline and 6 month

^*The data were analysed by one-way ANOVA.

^a,b,cSame letters indicate no significant difference among groups by Dunnett T3.

Table 3

Repeated-measures mixed model results for log-transformed creatinine-corrected Hg measurements at baseline and 6 month

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