Introduction: Cymbopogon nardus is a strong aromatic plant with relevant medicinal properties due to its essential chemical compounds and its potential therapeutic effects. This study was aimed to evaluate the antimicrobial activities of citronella essential oil against several oral pathogens and to identify the volatile compounds. Methods: The essential oil of C. nardus was purchased from Excellent Wisdom Sdn. Bhd., Malaysia. The source of raw material was collected from Malacca, the southern region of Malaysia, and the company made its taxonomic identification. An experimental in-vitro study was conducted on the essential oil processed from C. nardus genus Cymbopogon of Poaceae family. The in-vitro antimicrobial activities of C. nardus essential oil were evaluated against Streptococcus mutans (ATCC 25175), Streptococcus sobrinus (ATCC 33478), and Candida albicans (ATCC 10231) using agar well diffusion assay. The identification of the volatile compounds was performed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Results: The C. nardus essential oil exhibited inhibitory activity against C. albicans at the concentration of 6.25%, whereby the inhibitory activity against S. mutans and S. sobrinus began at the concentration of 25%. The antimicrobial activity of C. nardus essential oil was statistically significant at the concentration of 50% in all tested pathogens. The GC-MS analysis of the C. nardus essential oil revealed the presence of few constituents, which include monoterpenes, diterpenes, sesquiterpenes and phenolic compounds. Monoterpenes were the major identified terpenoids and contributed to 54.45% of the total volatile composition. The main identified monoterpenes were citronellal (11.35%), z-Citral (11.34%), β-Myrcene (6.70%), and β-Trans-ocimene (6.03%), which was the first time β-Myrcene and β-Trans-ocimene was found in high percentage. Conclusion: C. nardus essential oil is an active antibacterial agent against several oral pathogens, and the percentages of active volatile compounds are different within different origins.

Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) are widely applied in many disciplines including medicine. Pattern recognition or automatization has been successfully implemented in various field studies. Similarly, multiple efforts have been made in medicine to implement AI/ML technology to solve medical problems, for example, for automating osteoporosis detection. In general, the success of AI/ML technology is highly dependent on the amount of available data, especially during the training stage. Feature generation is a common technique that allows the manipulation of available data for the training stages. This paper aims to study the feasibility of adopting signal-processing techniques for feature generation in medical image processing. Signal attributes from signal processing workflow were adopted and applied to image processing of CT and DEXA scanning data to differentiate between normal and osteoporotic bone. Five attributes, namely amplitude, frequency, instantaneous phase, roughness, and first derivative or contrast attributes, have been tested. An attribute index number is formulated to indicate the attribute’s strength at the selected region of interest (ROI). A case study applying these attributes to the CNN model is presented. More than five hundred CT scan images of normal and osteoporosis bone were used during the training stage to test classification performance with and without developed attributes as an input. From the ten selected CT scan images used to test the CNN model, 90% were well predicted in the scenario only utilizing the grayscale as input. However, when including the developed attributes, the CNN can predict all the images well (100% were well predicted). In conclusion, the technique adopted from the signal-processing technique has the potential to enhance feature generation in image processing, whereby the results can be used for the early application of AI/ML in osteoporosis identification. Further research testing this proposed method in different image modalities needs to be conducted to verify the robustness of the proposed method.

Introduction: Oral health of pregnant women is essential due to the physiological, psychological, and immune response changes. Oral health-related prenatal services, however, are still insufficient. There are some deficiencies in health care and health promotion activities provided for pregnant women. The purpose of this study was to determine the oral health care practice of women with pregnancy experience. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted towards Indonesian women with pregnancy experience—sample size calculation was conducted using the survey population to estimate the population proportion formula. Inclusion criteria were women with pregnancy experience, owns mobile phones, able to access the Google® Form questionnaire, and willing to take part in the study. Exclusion criteria were women with pregnancy experience who did not complete the Google® Form questionnaire and women who were having a miscarriage or stillborn. Sampling technique was performed using the non-probability sampling with consecutive sampling technique in August until September 2019. Data collection using questionnaire in form of Google® Form questionnaire and distributed online to women who has pregnancy experience throughout Indonesia. Results: The respondents were grouped in three age categories: 22-34 years, 35-44 years, and 45-65 years. Respondents came from 45 cities throughout Indonesia. 62.70% of pregnant women had never visited the dentist. Pregnant women who have visited the dentist were only 37.30%. Pregnant women visited the dentist because they experience a toothache, while the reason for most pregnant women did not visit the dentist because they dd not have any oral health complaints. Conclusion: 62.70% of pregnant women had never visited the dentist. Pregnant women who have visited the dentist were only 37.30%. Women with pregnancy experience mostly have oral health care to treat their oral health complaints. However, the majority of them never visits the dentist because they did not have any oral health complaints.

This study aimed to obtain the results of psychometric analysis and reliability of the dental treatment motivation scale (DTMS), which was adapted cross-culturally for pregnant women in Indonesia. A descriptive survey was conducted with 149 pregnant women at a maternal clinic in Bandung City, Indonesia, in December 2020. Convenience sampling was chosen as the sampling technique after the inclusion and exclusion criteria had been fulfilled. Two English experts initially translated the DTMS questionnaire from English into Indonesian and the translated questionnaire was then reviewed by four expert panels, which were modified afterwards. The validity test was carried out using the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and goodness of fit index (GFI). The internal reliability analysis used Cronbach's alpha, and the test-retest was conducted using Pearson's correlation coefficient. The psychometric analysis results were obtained from four testing stages. The first stage was the initial eigenvalue assessment, and the cumulative percentage value was >60%. The second stage was the exploratory factor analysis, with a loading factor of >0.3. The third stage consisted of the confirmatory factor analysis, forming two components of the factor structure (intrinsic and extrinsic motivations). Finally, the fourth stage was the GFI assessment, which showed the good fit model with a value of 0.903. Very high internal consistency reliability ranged from 0.985 to 0.990; the test-retest p-value of Pearson's correlation coefficient was 0.000. In conclusion, the Indonesian version of the DTMS proved to be a reliable and valid instrument to measure Indonesian pregnant women's motivation to seek oral health treatment.

Introduction: Radiotherapy is a cancer therapy that uses ionizing radiation to damage cancer cells. Ionizing radiation in the head and neck area can disrupt the function and integrity of the oral mucosa and cause oral mucositis. In Bandung, the prevalence and risk factors of oral mucositis in head and neck cancer (HNC) patients undergoing radiotherapy have not been studied. Some textbooks claim that the prevalence of radiotherapy-induced oral mucositis in HNC patients occurs at almost 100%. Various risk factors associated with oral mucositis have been studied, giving significantly different results. This research analyzes the correlation between risk factors and mucositis oral in head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy. Methods: This research is a cross-sectional retrospective study with secondary data from medical records of HNC patients at RSHS from January 2015 until December 2019. A consecutive sampling method was used to collect the data that match the Inclusion criteria, including diagnosis of HNC(ICD-10), receiving radiotherapy from the first cycle until the last cycle; having a complete medical record following variables (location of HNC coding by ICD-10, gender, age, education level, smoking habit, the cycle of radiotherapy, oral treatment, body mass index, and comorbid disease). All data were then analyzed using Spearman correlation. Result: 171 medical records showed 59 patients had oral mucositis after radiotherapy. 26.9% male and 7.6% female, with susceptible age 40-60 years. Analysis of the Spearman correlation, there is a significant relationship between body mass index (BMI) (ρ = 0,001), smoking habits (ρ = 0,001), and radiotherapy cycles (ρ = 0.001). Conclusion: There is a correlation between risk factors of oral mucositis in HNC patients undergoing radiotherapy in RSHS, including body mass index (BMI), smoking habits, and radiotherapy cycles.Keywords: Head and neck cancer; oral mucositis; prevalence; risk factor; retrospective study

Introduction: An ideal mouth rinse must have an acceptable taste and very efficient antiplaque activity. Herbal mouth rinse (Plandula®), containing extracts of Calendula officinalis and other specified herbs, is widely cultivated as a herb. It is a remarkable healing agent and even useful to act as homeopathic remedies. Previous studies have compared this product with placebo; however, comparison against chlorhexidine have not been conducted thus far. Aim of this research was to analyse the efficacy of Calendula in Plandula® for controlling dental plaque and the acceptability of its taste in comparison with chlorhexidine. Methods: A double-blind, 3-day plaque regrowth, crossover, clinical study was conducted towards 16 volunteers participated in two periods, three days each, with modified oral hygiene practices through an intervening washout period of 4 days. At the commencement of each period, the participants received oral prophylaxis. They used the allocated mouth rinse and brushed teeth without toothpaste in all of the tooth surfaces, except palatal and lingual over three days. On the fourth day, the subjects were returned for plaque index measurement only on the palatal and lingual surfaces by the Quigley Hein index (modified by Turesky). The participants rinsed with 10 ml of allocated mouth rinse three times daily for 30 seconds after tooth brushing. The participants followed the same steps during the second period using the alternate mouth rinse. They were also asked to taste both mouth rinses and evaluate with a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS).Results: Median plaque score for Plandula® mouth rinse was slightly higher compared to chlorhexidine but not statistically significant, with the p-value=0.636 (p>0.05). The mean VAS scale score for Plandula® taste perception was lower than the chlorhexidine, and statistically significant (p-value=0.01; p<0.05). Conclusion: Plandula® mouth rinse that contain calendula officinalis comparable with chlorhexidine in controlling dental plaque accumulation, with an acceptable taste.