Risk for periodontal disease in patients with longstanding rheumatoid arthritis.

1998

Objective. To quantify periodontal disease in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and controls, and to correlate the degree of destruction from periodontal disease and from RA Methods. Fifty RA patients were matched for age, sex, smoking status, and oral hygiene with 101 controls. Correlations between indices of chronic destruction in periodontal disease (gingival attachment loss) and in RA (Larsen radiographic score) were determined. Results. Patients with longstanding active RA (mean ± SD 13 ± 8 years) who were receiving treatment with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (n = 46), corticosteroids (n = 38), or nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (n = 43) had a higher rate of gingival blee…