Sialometry
STERILE
Patients were asked to attend at 8:00–10:00 am in the same room with constant temperature and humidity to minimize diurnal variation. Eating/chewing, drinking and brushing teeth were refrained 90 min prior to each appointment. After resting for 10 min, unstimulated whole saliva (UWS) was collected by a sterile and pre-weighed plastic container every 30 s for a 5 min period. Stimulated whole saliva (SWS) was collected by asking patients to chew a piece of sterilized silicone rubber tubing (4*8 mm) and to spit all the saliva into another container as the same frequency and period of UWS. UWS and SWS were determined by the result of reweighting each container after collection subtracting the weight of empty container