Tooth Extraction and Periodontal Disease

The reasons for tooth extraction are rarely recorded in epidemiological datasets. It poses a diagnostic challenge to determine if tooth loss is related to periodontal disease (TLPD).

Periodontally compromised teeth adjacent to a lost tooth may help estimate whether the loss could be related to periodontal disease when the actual extraction reasons are unknown, suggests a recent study published in the Journal of Dentistry.

An Li and colleagues from the Center for Dentistry and Oral Hygiene, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands aimed to assess the inter-tooth relationships based on the periodontal characteristics of existing teeth.

A cross-sectional dataset of 8,978 participants with complete periodontal examination (including probing pocket depth [PPD] and clinical attachment loss [CAL]) was used in this study. Spearman rank correlation was applied to assess the inter-tooth correlations of probing pocket depth/clinical attachment loss among 28 teeth after adjustment for relevant confounders.

The authors further verified the findings in the Java Project on Periodontal Disease with tooth loss is related to periodontal disease information available (the number of tooth loss is related to periodontal disease = 12).

The results showed that strong probing pocket depth/clinical attachment loss correlations were observed in adjacent teeth rather than those on non-adjacent teeth.

The correlations increased among severe periodontitis cases. In line with this, they further observed that the teeth adjacent to the tooth loss is related to periodontal disease tooth had the most alveolar bone loss in the Java dataset.

Therefore, it was concluded that the periodontitis parameters (PPD/CAL) of adjacent teeth could be a potential indicator to estimate tooth loss is related to periodontal disease when actual reasons for tooth extraction are unknown.

Periodontally compromised teeth adjacent to a lost tooth may help estimate whether the loss could be related to periodontal disease when the actual extraction reasons are unknown, they further inferred.

For more details, visit the study: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdent.2021.103755