IAI preterm birth study

Is periodontal disease associated with spontaneous early preterm birth in Geneva, Switzerland?

“Prematurity is a leading cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality in developed countries, accounting for 60-80% of the deaths of infants without congenital anomalies. It also accounts for 1/3 of all health care spending on infants and 1/10 of spending on children. The medical, psychological, and economic burdens of preterm births—and by extension, preterm labor that ends in preterm births—are very important. In spite of advances in obstetrical care, the rate of prematurity in industrialized countries (approximately 10%) has not decreased over the past 40 years.

Recent studies suggest that periodontal disease, as a source of subclinical and persistent infection, may induce systemic inflammatory responses that increase the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Nevertheless, the methods used to define periodontal disease have been diverse raising conflicting results.”

Along with the department of Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the University Hospital of Geneva, and the School of Dental Medicine (University of Geneva), IAI participates, since early 2007, to this research project about the bacteriological causes of preterm birth.

More precisely, the working hypothesis is that the presence of periodontal disease is associated with moderate/severe preterm delivery. As a corollary, it means that the presence of specific oral bacteria is also associated with preterm delivery.

The principal aim is to demonstrate that periodontal disease (defined using the consensus definition) is associated with preterm delivery before 35 weeks of gestation. Secondary aims are 1) To use the percentile plots to define periodontal disease associated with preterm delivery, 2) to analyze the agreement between the consensus definition and the prematurity-associated definition and 3) to analyze the association between periodontal disease associated with preterm delivery and microbiological results.

An important sampling scheme has been designed to obtain statistically valuable analyses, including multiples criteria.

"Importance of the study:

Preterm labor and delivery are a leading source of mortality and severe morbidity in perinatology causing high medical, psychological and social costs. Treatment with available tocolytics of women with preterm labor is not effective in reducing preterm delivery. Moreover, prevention is difficult, due to the multiplicity of causes and due to the absence of reliable tests for risk assessment.

Maternal periodontal infection has been shown associated with preterm delivery in other countries with populations quite different to ours. There is a need to asses whether this medical condition is also associated with preterm delivery in Switzerland.

Finding a positive association between periodontal disease and preterm delivery could justify changing healthcare practices in obstetrics. It might also have a huge economic impact if dental care of childbearing age and pregnant women becomes standard of care (i.e. insurance coverage of dental care in this population). “

In this research project, IAI offers its experience in periodontal diseases analyses, its oral bacteriology knowledge, their skills and biomolecular analyses tools.

“…” Extracts from the research project written by Dre. B. Martinez de Tejada, et al. 2007: " Is periodontal disease associated with spontaneous early preterm birth in Geneva, Switzerland? "

Lead of research project: Dre. B. Martinez de Tejada, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. University Hospital of Geneva.

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