Radiographic periodontal attachment loss as an indicator of death risk in the elderly.
OBJECTIVE
Oral infections have been associated with serious systemic diseases and an increased risk of death. Our aims were to investigate whether radiographically-observed apical periodontitis lesions, carious teeth, periodontal attachment loss (horizontal bone loss, furcation lesions, number of teeth with infrabony periodontal pockets, the extent of infrabony periodontal pockets) and the sum of all these findings have any relationships with all-cause mortality within 4-year follow-up.


METHODS
292 community-dwelling elderly persons aged 76, 81 and 86 years. The number of deaths within 4 years was 54 (18.5%). In the dentate 169 subjects, of whom 32 (18.9%) deceased within 4 years, the mean number of teeth was 15.5 in men and 13.2 in women. The imaging method used was panoramic radiography supplemented by intraoral radiographs.


RESULTS
51% of the dentate subjects had infrabony pockets (mean 1.5, s.d. 2.2), and 40% had periapical periodontitis lesions (mean 1.0, s.d. 1.6). After controlling for age and gender, vertical bone loss judged as advanced infrabony pockets was associated with 4-year all-cause mortality (Odds ratio 2.2,1.0-4.7). Other associations were statistically insignificant.


CONCLUSIONS
Periodontal attachment loss may indicate an increased risk of death in the elderly.
Soikkonen
K
K
Department of Diagnostics and Oral Medicine, Institute of Dentistry, University of Oulu, Finland.
Wolf
J
J
Salo
T
T
Tilvis
R
R
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D017622:Periodontal Attachment Loss / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000401:mortality; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011862:Radiography, Panoramic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011897:Random Allocation; D012307:Risk Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data