Association between periodontitis and hypertension among a sample of adult Egyptian patients: A hospital-based cross-sectional study

Aim: The prevalence of hypertension in adult Egyptians is 29.2%. This investigation's objective is to evaluate the link between periodontitis and hypertension in adult Egyptian outpatients who visit the Oral Medicine and Periodontology Department at Cairo University's Faculty of Dentistry. Materials and Methods: Periodontal and radiographic assessment of each patient was performed in order to get a consensus along with the newest classification of periodontal disorders published in 2018 and involved only the periodontitis cases. Then, a questionnaire was filled which included sociodemographic and medical data. An automated sphygmomanometer apparatus was implemented to check blood pressure at the clinic. Then, patients were categorized into three groups: prehypertension, hypertension, and hypertension-free groups in relation to their blood pressure records. Results: The present research was conducted on 376 subjects diagnosed with periodontitis, most patients did not have hypertension (240 patients, 63.8%). Prehypertension group included 66 patients (17.6%) while the hypertension group had 70 patients (18.6%). There was a statistically significant difference between probing depth (PD) measurements in patients with different hypertension categories (P value = 0.016, effect size = 0.009). It revealed that patients with hypertension exhibited the statistically remarkably greatest PD. There was no statistically significant difference among the study groups as regards the periodontitis stages (P = 0.161), and periodontitis grades (P = 0.716). Conclusions: In this investigation, there was no connection between periodontitis and hypertension in the Egyptian population where periodontitis is a complex condition with several risk factors. However, hypertensive patients had high significant levels of PD.