Periodontal disease and type I diabetes mellitus in children and adolescents.

This study compared the periodontal status of a juvenile diabetic study group with that of a non-diabetic control group similar in age and sex. The study group consisted of 26 type I diabetic patients with an average age of 13.42 years and 24 control subjects of similar age. The diabetic subjects were evaluated with glycosylated hemoglobin (GHb) to obtain a measure of diabetic control. Clinical periodontal evaluations were performed for all teeth in each subject, and consisted of the plaque index, gingival fluid flow, gingival index, probing depths, clinical attachment levels, recession, and bleeding on probing. Analysis of the data demonstrated no statistically significant differences in the overall means for the 2 groups for average attachment loss, probing depths, recession, gingival index, plaque index, gingival fluid flow, or bleeding on probing. There was no significant association between the level of control of diabetes (GHb) and clinical variables. However, comparisons based on site-specific measurements showed the gingival index to be somewhat higher among the diabetics (p = 0.0002), and examination of interaction effect plots showed the diabetic group to have higher average gingival index for most teeth and higher or the same plaque index levels on all teeth relative to controls. Thus, a young study population with type I diabetes mellitus was found to have significantly increased severity of inflammatory gingival disease compared to controls of similar age.