Introduction: There are existing studies investigating relationships between chronic systemic and dental conditions, but it remains unclear how such knowledge can be used in clinical practice. The present report provides an overview on existing systematic reviews, identifying and evaluating the most frequently reported dental-chronic disease correlations and common risk factors.
Methods: A systematic review on existing systematic reviews published between 1995 and 2017 was conducted (umbrella review) and indexed into four databases. The focus was set on the three most prevalent dental conditions and ten chronic systemic diseases with the highest burden of disease in Germany. Two independent reviewers assessed all articles for eligibility, methodological quality using the AMSTAR criteria, and extracted data from the included studies.
Results: 32 out of the initially identified 1,249 systematic reviews were included for qualitative synthesis. The dental conditions with most frequently observed correlations to chronic systemic diseases was periodontitis. The chronic systemic disease with most frequently observed correlations with a dental condition was diabetes mellitus type 2. Most dental-chronic disease correlations were found between periodontitis and diabetes mellitus type 2 and periodontitis and cardiovascular disease. Frequently reported common risk factors included smoking, age, sex and overweight. Using the AMSTAR criteria, 2 studies were assessed as low quality, 26 studies moderate and 4 studies high quality.
Conclusion: The quality of included systematic reviews was heterogenous. The most frequently reported correlations were found for periodontitis with diabetes mellitus type 2 and for cardiovascular disease with diabetes mellitus type 2. Yet the strength of evidence for these and other disease correlations remains limited. The evidence to assess the causality of these disease correlations remains unclear. Future research should therefore focus on the causality of disease links in order to provide more decisive evidence with respect to the design of intersectoral care processes.
