The Potential for Glycemic Control Monitoring and Screening for Diabetes at Dental Visits Using Oral Blood

Objectives. We examined the potential for glycemic control monitoring and screening for diabetes in a dental setting among adults (n = 408) with or at risk for diabetes.Methods. In 2013 and 2014, we performed hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) tests on dried blood samples of gingival crevicular blood and compared these with paired “gold-standard” HbA1c tests with dried finger-stick blood samples in New York City dental clinic patients. We examined differences in sociodemographics and diabetes-related risk and health care characteristics for 3 groups of at-risk patients.Results. About half of the study sample had elevated HbA1c values in the combined prediabetes and diabetes ranges, with approximately one fourth of those in the diabetes range. With a correlation of 0.991 between gingival crevicular and finger-stick blood HbA1c, measures of concurrence between the tests were extremely high for both elevated HbA1c and diabetes-range HbA1c levels. Persons already diagnosed with diabetes and undiagnosed persons aged 45 ye...