BACKGROUND

The link between dental, infective and obstructive cardiovascular diseases is debatable.

AIM

To systematically review the literature to assess the association between dental conditions and development of cardiovascular disease.

METHODS

The systematic review was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines using PubMed (Medline), Web of Science, Scopus, EMBASE and SciELO.

RESULTS

Out of 6680 records, 82 articles were eligible for inclusion after reviewing titles and abstracts. No association between dental disease and cardiovascular disease has been observed in 10 studies while a potential link has been suggested by the remaining trials. Tooth loss and periodontitis are the main evaluated oral conditions while coronary artery disease, stroke, atherosclerosis and myocardial infarction represent the major cardiovascular events. The interaction between these two clinical entities is based on direct mechanism mediated by systemic inflammatory response, leakage of cytokines and endothelial cells invasion by oral pathogens and indirect mechanism mediated by common risk factors or confounders.

CONCLUSIONS

It seems that tooth loss, periodontitis and poor oral hygiene increase the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular events, and subsequently oral health care professionals could contribute to public health cardiovascular control efforts.