A total of 80 subjects participated in the study. Forty removable partial denture wearers comprised the
experimental group and 40 age and gender matched non-denture wearers comprised the control group.
All subjects were patients who attended the dental clinics of the Department of Oral Medicine and Department of Prosthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Chulalongkorn University during the peroid of June 2008 to February 2009. Inclusion criteria for subject selection were healthy individuals with no systemic disease, and no clinical sign of Candida infection. Individuals who smoked, received or were currently taking antibiotics, antifungals, steroids or immunosuppressive drugs in the past 6 months were excluded from this study. All subjects were informed and signed the consent forms approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Dentistry, Chulalongkorn University prior to their participation.