Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Periodontal disease (PD) is a disease with infectious determinism, initiating inflammatory and autoimmune processes, in intricate evolutionary stages, affecting 10% to 60% of adults.

Objectives: Between chronic autoimmune thyroiditis (CAT) and PD there are observations regarding pathogenic interconditioning.

Material and method

Group 1 (n = 109 patients) comprised 84 women and 25 men. The mean age was 36 ± 9 years for women and 41 ± 7 years for men. All patients had CAT and PD. Group 2 – was composed of 91 patients with PD, 62 women and 29 men, with an average age of 31 ± 11 years for women and 43 ± 12 years for men, without associated thyroid pathology.

Results: Monofactorial linear regression (Pearson’ coefficient) tested the dependency ratios between the simplified oral hygiene index (OHI-S) and the parameters determined in the study group (Group 1): the age of the patients and the paraclinical characteristics of thyroid autoimmunity – TSH, ATPO, ATG.

In terms of patient age, an average interdependence was established between the OHI-S and age (r = 0.62, P = 0.018). Thyroid function, estimated by the mean value with the serum TSH level recorded above the normal maximum levels (> 4.2 mUI/ml), determined in terms of hypothyroidism an average interdependence between OHI-S and TSH (r = 0.55; P = 0.0003). Taking into account the average values of ATPO and ATG considered individually in the patients of Group 1, there was not shown a proportional relation to the value of OHI – S. Analyzing the relationship between the parameters obtained in the study of CAT characteristics in the patients of the study group by multifactorial linear regression, we found a directly proportional relation between OHI-S and TSH, ATPO, ATG – ab. (r = 0.56; P = 0.001). Along with these parameters, their interdependence was much closer considering the age of the patients (r = 0.78; P < 0.001). This finding is in agreement with the particularities of expression of the evolution duration of PD, but also of the altered thyroid function during the destructive thyroid autoimmune process.

Conclusions: A unitary concept regarding the etiopathogeny and the interconditioning of periodontal disease in patients with chronic autoimmune thyroiditis remains to be specified, taking into account the individualized expression features of the two diseases with inflammatory/autoimmune mechanism.