Chronic periodontitis and oral cancer: Is unhealthy periodontal tissue a risk factor of oral cancers?

Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the status of the periodontal tissue in patients with an oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).
Methods: Twenty three OSCC patients were included in this study; 14 patients with a tongue cancer, 5 with a gingival cancer, and 4 with a cancer of other sites. The control group consisted of 39 patients with a cancer other than OSCC; 19 patients with a lung cancer, 13 with an esophageal cancer, and 7 with a cancer of other organs. There were no differences in distributions of gender, age and patients with the history of smoking between the OSCC group and the control. The status of periodontal tissue was assessed by the number of remaining teeth, the depth of periodontal pocket (DPP), the bleeding on probe (BOP) and the alveolar bone loss (ABL). ABL was gained by the method of Tezal (Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 133, 2007).
Results: The average ratio of teeth with DPP >= 6 mm was higher in the OSCC group (19.6%) than in the control (10.1%), although there was no difference in the number of teeth between the 2 groups. Average values of ABL were 3.96 mm and 2.91 mm in the OSCC group and the control, respectively. In addition, when compared OSCC patients of the early stage (T1 and T2) and those of the late stage (T3 and T4), we found no differences in the status of the periodontal tissue. The results showed that OSCC patients were suffered from advanced chronic periodontitis even at the early stage of cancer.
Conclusions: It was suggested that unhealthy condition of the periodontal tissue was a risk factor of oral cancers. Further studies with a large cohort of OSCC patients are needed to clarify the relationship between chronic periodontitis and oral carcinogenesis.