Exposure to XXXX smoking and periodontal health.

@entity286 @entity66 @entity2520 @entity548 @entity5251
BACKGROUND: The influence of smoking behavior on the periodontal health condition was clinically and radiographically studied in 257 dentally aware adults in the age range 20-69 years, including 50 current smokers, 61 former smokers and 133 non-smokers. AIMS: The clinical variables to be investigated were frequency of diseased sites > or =4 mm, frequency of @entity548 sites and plaque index. In addition, the periodontal bone height was radiographically assessed as a % of the @entity5251 . METHODS: All variables were based on full-mouth examinations including all teeth and periodontia. RESULTS: The observations indicated an inferior periodontal health condition associated with smoking. This was evidenced by a significantly greater frequency of diseased sites and a significantly greater reduction of periodontal bone height in current smokers as compared to non-smokers. The condition of former smokers was intermediate between current smokers and non-smokers, suggesting that former smokers who have quit smoking have a better periodontal health condition than current smokers, although worse than that of non-smokers. The finding that former smokers exhibited @entity66 than current smokers suggests that smoking cessation may be beneficial and mitigate the untoward effects inflicted by smoking, allowing a normalization towards non-smoker conditions. Heavy exposure was consistently associated with more severe a condition than light exposure, suggesting that the relationship between smoking exposure and periodontal morbidity is dose-dependent. CONCLUSIONS: Altogether, the present observations identify a negative impact from smoking on periodontal health and provide further evidence that @entity286 smoking is an avoidable risk for @entity2520 .
