Maternal periodontal disease, systemic inflammation, and risk for preeclampsia
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008Hello,
A few days ago, a colleague of mine passed along a study about the association between maternal periodontal disease , systemic inflammation and an elevated risk for preeclampsia that was published in the April edition of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
First and foremost I had to look up what preeclampsia was. At which time I discovered that preeclampsia is a serious complication involving the development of hypertension (high blood pressure) during pregnancy and can lead to premature delivery. For the purpose of this study the condition was categorized as 2 episodes of blood pressure greater than 140/90 mmHg and at least 1+ proteinuria on a catherized urine specimen.
In the study the presence of periodontal disease was defined as 1 or more tooth sites with greater than or equal to 4 mm pocket depth or 1 or more tooth pockets greater than 3 mm that bled on probing. During this study they also measure the level of C-reactive protein a known non-specific marker of inflammation in order to determine the level of systemic inflammation.
This study showed that expecting women with an increased level of C-reactive protein and periodontal disease were at an increased of developing preeclampsia
If you would like more information about this article you can follow the link below to the Reuters article from May 7th, or the article from the journal.
Take care,
Tyler
