Saving more teeth-a case for personalized care

Certain risk factors such as tobacco use, diabetes, genetic variations on the IL1 gene, and other inflammatory conditions are hypothesized to predict tooth loss in patients treated in a large medical center. Tooth loss trends are hypothesized to be greater in patients with more risk factors.

DNA samples for 881 individuals were taken from the Dental Registry and DNA Repository at University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine. Clinical data for all 4137 subjects in the registry were also available. SNP genotyping was performed on the samples for IL1α (rs1800587) and IL1β (rs1143634). IL1 positive status was determined as having one or more of the recessive alleles for either SNP. Tooth loss status was determined based on dental records and data gathered for age, sex, ethnicity, and self-reported medical history. Various statistical analyses were performed on the data including genetic association analysis by the PLINK software, chi-square, Mann-Whitney U, and ANOVA tests to determine significance.

Tooth loss averages increased with age by all risk factors (smoking, diabetes, hypertension, and interleukin genotypes; p = 4.07E-13) and by number of risk factors (p = 0.006). Increased tooth loss is associated with age and number of risk factors including diabetes, tobacco use, IL1+, and cardiovascular disease.

These trends suggest that older patients and those with more risk factors should seek further preventive care to reduce future tooth loss.