EC Dental Science

Background: Periodontitis is one of the most common chronic infectious diseases, multifactorial in origin, affecting the supporting structures of teeth. The plethora of bacterial challenge that is typical of chronic periodontitis poses a threat to the integrity of sulcular epithelium, which acts as a protective barrier. The extent of resulting bacteremia is directly related to severity of inflammation of periodontal tissues therefore, it has been speculated that periodontitis results in low grade systemic inflammation. Scientific evidence supports, that there may be a direct or indirect association between periodontitis and increase in the risk of systemic diseases. The bacteria and their products evoke an immune inflammatory reaction in the host tissue leading to one of the causes of ‘Anemia of Chronic Disease’ (ACD). The present study was aimed to study the association between chronic periodontitis and hemoglobin level in subjects with and without chronic periodontitis.

Material and Methods: In this study, a total of 10 subjects were selected and divided into groups of 5 each:

• Group I: 5 systemically healthy subjects, without chronic generalized periodontitis.
• Group II: 5 systemically healthy subjects, with chronic generalized periodontitis.

Clinical and hematological parameters were recorded of all the subjects and then tabulated and put to statistical analysis.

Results: The intergroup comparison of clinical parameters like PPD and CAL were significantly higher in the experimental group as compared to the control group (p = 0.001). The results showed that periodontitis like other inflammatory conditions could lead to anemia as stated by the low hemoglobin and RBC levels in experimental group.

Conclusion: The present study suggested that chronic periodontitis may cause reduction of hemoglobin concentration and RBC count which may be attributed due to increase in pro-inflammatory cytokines which are thought to act as mediators in suppressing erythropoiesis from the bone marrow leading to anemia.

Keywords: Chronic Periodontitis; Anemia; Hemoglobin; Red Blood Cells; ESR

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