A recent review found that periodontitis is associated with mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

A contemporaneous systematic review and meta-analysis published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Dentistry found that periodontitis was associated with mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) but not severe OSA.

The investigators searched literature from inception to December 31, 2021, from Embase, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. Keywords apnea or sleep apnea and periodontal or periodontitis were used in the search.

Studies with adults aged 18 and older were evaluated. Reviews, case reports, editorials, or letters to the editors; duplicate papers; surveys recruiting children; and studies that did not clearly explain the population characteristics, periodontitis definition, study outcomes, etc, were excluded.

Information on the number of subjects, mean age, number of men and women, method used for diagnosis of OSA, number with or without periodontitis, and number with or without OSA was recorded. Data related to the association between periodontitis and OSA severity were also recorded if available.

Ten studies, for a total of 30,994 participants, were included in this review. All articles were written in English and all had high or moderate quality as assessed by the Newcastle-Ottawa scale for non-randomized studies.

Get the full story at ajmc.com.