Association between severity of dental caries and the risk of stroke

Objective: The relationship between dental caries and stroke remains inconclusive. The aim of this study is to investigate whether different severities of dental caries affect the risk of stroke.Methods: This retrospective cohort study was conducted using the 2000-2013 Taiwan National Health Insurance Database. We selected 23,662 patients with advanced/severe dental caries and 23,662 patients with incipient/moderate dental caries between 2000 and 2006. These patients were followed to the occurrence of stroke or to the end of the study in 2013. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) derived from the Cox proportional hazards models were calculated to assess the association between severity of dental caries and the risk of stroke.Results: The advanced/severe dental caries group had a significantly higher risk of stroke compared with incipient/moderate dental caries group (adjusted HR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.03-1.31). Stratified analyses showed that advanced/severe dental caries was positively associated with the risk of ischemic stroke in patients aged >= 40 years and with the risk of hemorrhagic stroke in patients aged <40 years.ConclusionThere is a severity-dependent association between dental caries and stroke in an Asian population.