The COMMIT Dental Model: Tobacco Control Practices and Attitudes

The Potential Use of Gingival Crevicular Blood for Measuring Glucose to Screen for Diabetes: An Examination Based on Characteristics of the Blood Collection Site

“…Notably, in surveys of dentists and dental hygienists, 85% of dentists and 78% of dental hygienists in New York State reported providing annual oral cancer examinations to their patients aged 40 years and older, 22 whereas 92% of Illinois dentists indicated that they performed oral cancer screenings on asymptomatic patients 23 . However, perhaps because they are likely to be less comfortable performing extraoral assessments, 24 a much smaller proportion of dentists and dental hygienists assess blood pressure 25–27 or provide tobacco‐ or alcohol‐cessation counseling 28–32 . Because the measurement of glucose through GCB involves a quick and simple intraoral procedure with minimal cost, dental professionals may be motivated to implement diabetes screening using a GCB sample and feel comfortable and confident in doing so.…”

Effectiveness of Tobacco Counseling in the Dental Office

“…Several surveys among U.S. dentists suggested a high proportion had at least raised the issue of smoking cessation with their pa-tients. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] In the latest reported U.S. national survey (1,746 dentists completing survey data), 33 percent reported that they asked most or nearly all patients whether they smoke, 66 percent advised smoking patients to quit, and 29 percent provided some tobacco use cessation service. 19 Compared with earlier U.S. surveys, this latest study indicated an upward trend of dentists' involvement in Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) prescriptions (Table 1).…”

“…The National Cancer Institute's (NCI) National Dental Tobacco-Free Steering Committee (NDTFSC) in the United States encourages oral health teams and dental organizations to directly, appropriately, and routinely influence patients and the public to avoid and discontinue the use of tobacco. The involvement of U.S. dentists in the NCI's Community Intervention Trial for Smoking Cessation (COMMIT) 16 is beyond the scope of this review, as all COMMIT activities were at a community level. An overview of dentistry's involvement in tobacco issues was published by Jones 32 to coincide with the 11 th World Conference of Tobacco or Health held in Chicago in 2000.…”

Management of smoking patients by specialist periodontists and hygienists in the United Kingdom

“…However, smoking cessation interventions are not employed routinely in dental practice (Jones et al 1993, Dolan et al 1997, John et al 1997, Watt et al 2004). The main barriers appear to be lack of training (Johnson et al 2006), time and funding (Chestnutt & Binnie 1995, Allard 2000, Watt et al 2004) and doubt over the effectiveness of such intervention (Watt et al 2004, Wyne et al 2006).…”