Objectives: To determine the prevalence of recurrent aphthous ulcer and the gender and age distribution of the various subtypes of recurrent aphthous ulcer among patients utilizing dental services in University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH). Methods: A retrospective cross sectional study was carried out in Oral Medicine Clinic, UBTH. Data of patients with recurrent aphthous ulcers were collected and analyzed with IBM SPSS version 21.0 software. The association between age and gender distribution amongst patients was analyzed using Chi squared test. The level of significance was set at P < 0.05. Results: The prevalence of recurrent aphthous ulcer in the study was found to be 7.2%, with 54.5% of cases seen in male patients and 45.5% in female. Most of the patients (n=9, 41.0%) were within the 21-30 years age group. Eleven (50.0%) cases of recurrent aphthous ulcer were found to be of the minor subtype with more female preponderance (27.4%), while 8(36.4%) had the hepertiform subtype with equal gender distribution and the least (13.6%) was the major subtype found only in male patients. Conclusion: The study revealed an overall prevalence of 7.2% of recurrent aphthous ulcers with higher occurrence among males. Most of the patients were in the third decade of life. The most common subtype of recurrent aphthous ulcer was the minor type.

One of the most probable markers of inflammatory response is serum protein. Recently, serum levels of these some proteins have been proven to be useful in clinical diagnosis. In this study, we comparatively investigated serum and saliva C - reactive protein (CRP), α-amylase and α-glucosidase activities in type II Diabetic and Normo-glycemic humans. Two hundred and thirteen (213) subjects of 173 Diabetics and 40 Non-diabetics (Control) were ethically recruited from the central hospital, warri, Delta State. For each participant, serum and saliva was collected and laboratorily analyzed for α-amylase, α-glucosidase and CRP levels, while comparing mean differences between groups with a student t-test and statistical measure of association (correlation). Result showed a statistically significant increase in CRP and α-amylase activity of diabetics than non-diabetic subjects, with a statistically significant increase in salivary and serum CRP, α-glucosidase and α-amylase levels across groups. This finding is suggestive that saliva and/or serum levels may be useful bioanalytes for non-invasive, alternative diagnosis of blood glucose levels. Similar studies that corroborate the efforts of this study is recommended. Further studies that assay other saliva and serum biomarkers may also be useful and thus recommended.

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The rising threat of Plasmodium falciparum resistance to Monotherapies has prompted the world health organization (WHO) 2006 guidelines to recommend the use of different anti-malarias. In this study, the anti-malaria and hypoglycaemic activities of Diosgenin, a potent, yet poorly reported saponin was investigated on P. falciparum inoculated and Alloxan-Induced, Diabetic Wistar Rats. Fort two (42) adult male wistar rats of between 100g and 150g were procured, acclimatized (for two weeks), and grouped into seven of six (6) rats per group. While Group 1 (Normal control) received normal rat chow and water ad libitum, groups 2 – 4 received no treatment (untreated), 10 mg/kg body weight of anti-diabetic Metformin and 25 mg/kg body weight of diosgenin respectively after inducing diabetes mellitus (DM) with alloxan monohydrate; whereas, groups 5-7 (all malaria infected) were untreated (negative malaria control), 25 mg/kg body weight of diosgenin and 56 mg/kg body weight of anti-malaria coartem respectively. Following treatment period, blood samples were obtained and assayed for fasting blood sugar, packed cell volume (PCV) and total white blood cell count (TWBCC). From the result, P. falciparum exposed rats showed lowered PCV values than control with observed improvements in coartem (significant at p < 0.05) and diosgenin (insignificant) treatment groups. Also, diabetic, diosgenin treated rats showed an insignificant reduction in blood sugar levels compared to control, even though this change was apparently improved compared to diabetic, untreated group. Again, TWBCC caused notable decrease in diosgenin treated, though this decrease signified a huge recovery compared to untreated rats. Corroborative studies on diosgenin with other systems is recommended.