Oral Health Parameters as Predictors of Mortality of the Elderly

Objectives: Oral infections may associate statistically with mortality (for review see Meurman & Hamalainen, Gerodontology 2006;23:3-16). Our present aim was to investigate if clinical oral health and salivary parameters predict 10-year mortality in an elderly population from Eastern Finland.

Methods: Backwards logistic regression analyses and Cox survival analyses were conducted in 370 79±6.5 year old subjects from Kuopio, Finland. The subjects (108 men, 262 women) had been examined 10-years prior to the present study. The baseline clinical and salivary examination results have been earlier published by Pajukoski et al. (Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol 1999;88:437-43). In the present study these data combined with hospital and death records from Statistics Finland were used in the analyses with mortality as the outcome.

Results: During 10-year observation, 49 men (45%) and 107 women (41%) died. The no. of edentulous subjects was higher among the died (59%) than survived (51%, p<0.07) and no. of teeth was significantly lower, respectively. The died had had 5.4±8.1 teeth in the mean vs. survived 7.3±9.1 teeth (p<0.005). However, age was the most significant parameter explaining death in the population (p<0.001).Of the survived patients men seemed to be more often dentate than women (p=0.034) and same was observed within the died patients (p = 0.003)

Conclusions: In this 10-year follow-up study no oral health parameter emerged as a significant explanatory factor for death. In our population edentulous patients had a lower risk of death than dentate; however, the more teeth a dentate patient had the longer he or she seemed to live. Supported by the Paivikki and Sakari Sohlberg Foundation, Helsinki, Finland.