Apical periodontitis associates with cardiovascular diseases: a cross-sectional study from Sweden

BACKGROUND Periodontal disease associates with systemic diseases but corresponding links regarding apical periodontitis (AP) are not so clear. Hence our aim was to study association between AP and the prevalence of systemic diseases in a study population from Sweden. METHODS The subjects were 150 patients from a randomly selected epidemiological sample of 1676 individuals. 120 accepted to participate and their basic and clinical examination data were available for these secondary analyses where dental radiographs were used to record signs for endodontic treatments and AP. Periapical Index and modified Total Dental Index scores were calculated from the x-rays to classify the severity of AP and dental infection burden, respectively. Demographic and hospital record data were collected from the Swedish National Statistics Center. T-test, chi-square and univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and regressions analyses were used for statistics. RESULTS Of the 120 patients 41% had AP and 61% had received endodontic treatments of which 52% were radiographically unsatisfactory. AP patients were older and half of them were smokers. AP and periodontitis often appeared in the same patient (32.5%). From all hospital diagnoses, cardiovascular diseases (CVD) were most common, showing 20.4% prevalence in AP patients. Regression analyses, controlled for age, gender, income, smoking and periodontitis, showed AP to associate with CVD with odds ratio 3.83 (95% confidence interval 1.18-12.40; p = 0.025). CONCLUSIONS The results confirmed our hypothesis by showing that AP statistically associated with cardiovascular diseases. The finding that subjects with AP also often had periodontitis indicates an increased oral inflammatory burden.