A group of leading periodontists recently released the “Perio Focus Green Paper” highlighting the importance of periodontal disease and its impact on systemic health.

The group recommend three areas for action: prevention, diagnosis and treatment, see the full outline of the paper http://prevention.efp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/greenpaper-v3.pdf.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) suggest that severe periodontitis is the sixth most prevalent global disease. It affects over 750 million people worldwide. In the USA, it is estimated that half of all the over 30s are affected by the disease; adding a significant cost to their healthcare system.

Heart diseases, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases are the cause of approx 60% of deaths, periodontal disease share many social determinants and risk factors with these severe conditions. Dentists are in a position to flag patients who appear to have severe diseases that are unresponsive to conventional treatment, or do not correlate with other risk factors. If our health care services are to move towards a more joined up/integrated health system, dentists can screen for diseases such as diabetes at our surgeries?

The paper concludes with several health care targets to help increase the awareness of periodontitis, and help increase access to primary care. Periodontal disease is preventable, and is easier and more cost effective to treat in its early stages.  How do we create greater awareness? Will be great to hear your views/comments