The study showed that a three-month course of treatment with antibiotics could decrease the recurrence of cardiovascular events in patients without periodontitis, an infection of the gingiva or gums, while the medication was found to have no effect in patients with periodontitis.
This is the first time dental infections have been linked to the effectiveness of long-term treatment with antibiotics designed to prevent myocardial infarcts.
According to the results, long-term antibiotic medication would prevent myocardial infarcts in patients that do not have periodontitis, or related signs of inflammation such as disease-causing bacteria or antibodies to those bacteria.
Periodontitis appears to be such a significant chronic infection that the effect of antibiotic treatment in preventing cardiovascular events is lost in patients that suffer from it. During one year of observation, patients with no signs of periodontitis were more likely to avoid new cardiovascular events. This difference was particularly pronounced in patients under the age of 65: 90% of non-periodontitis subjects completed the year without a new cardiovascular event, compared with only 64% of those with periodontitis and 50% of those without teeth.
In patients under the age of 65, periodontitis may cause a fivefold increase in the risk of recurrent acute cardiovascular events in comparison with healthy people.
The researchers examined 141 patients who were hospitalized for acute cardiovascular events. The double-blind trial involved registering the recurrence of new cardiovascular events over one year and measured the presence of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans and Porphyromonas gingivalis using saliva and serum samples.