Evaluation of the Relationship Between the Severity of Periodontitis and Rheumatoid Arthritis

Background: Although a high prevalence of periodontitis has been reported in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), the possible association between the severity of periodontitis and RA disease activity remains unclear. Methods: This study was performed on 73 patients with RA selected according to the criteria of the American College of Rheumatology who were referred to a rheumatology clinic in Qazvin in 2021. The activity of the RA disease was evaluated by the Disease Activity Score 28 (DAS28), and the severity of periodontitis was evaluated by clinical attachment loss (CAL) and plaque index (PI). Age, sex, duration of disease, and type of treatment were also recorded. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to evaluate the normal distribution of quantitative variables, and the chi-square test was used to investigate the relationship between qualitative variables. Results: Patients with RA were predominantly women (86.3%) between the ages of 25 and 73. The average duration of the disease was 5.78 years with a range of 3 months to 30 years. The majority of RA patients had moderate disease activity (47.9%) and the lowest prevalence was for the low disease activity (8.2%). Most of the patients had mild periodontitis (65.8%). The highest mean of PI was observed in patients with severe disease activity and the patients at the remission stage had the least PI level, but the difference was not significant (P = 0.574). In dental examination, 24(32.9%) patients had moderate to severe periodontitis unrelated to the higher disease activity (P = 0.372). Conclusions: No significant relation was observed between RA disease activity and periodontitis severity.