A better understanding of the relationship between skeletal bone status and alveolar bone loss is essential for the development of strategies to prevent periodontitis and tooth loss and to identify elders at risk for osteoporosis. The relationship in men has not received much attention even though periodontal diseases are prevalent in the male population. The incidence of osteoporosis among men is expected to nearly double in the next few decades, as well. The proposed study is a longitudinal clinical epidemiologic study on the relationship of skeletal bone density and bone loss to progressive alveolar bone loss (ABL), taking advantage of the established and well-characterized study population in the VA Normative Aging Study (VA NAS).
The aim i s to determine whether 1-year rates of bone change at the hip and forearm (two common fracture sites) differ between men with progressive ABL and men without progressive ABL. A total of 100 medically healthy study subjects will be selected from a pool of 700 VA NAS participants who have been ranked with respect to progressive ABL on the basis of radiographic evidence, as determined by previously obtained, multiple sequential full-mouth series of intra-oral radiographs. Subjects with the most progressive ABL (n=50) and those with the least (n=50) will have bone density measurements of the femur and radium at baseline and again after a 1-year interval. Bone density will be determined by dual- energy (femur) and single-energy X-ray absorptiometry (radius). If bone loss differs between the two groups with extreme levels of ABL in this pilot study, it may suggest a role for systemic bone loss in explaining variability in ABL. In the absence of well-defined risk indicators for primary osteoporosis in men, it is important to determine whether oral bone loss may be useful in identifying men in need of skeletal bone evaluation.
