Critérios de medida da doença periodontal na associação com a prematuridade/baixo peso ao nascer / Criteria for measuring periodontal disease in association with prematurity/low birth weight

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to compare the diagnostic criteria for periodontal disease used for studyng the association with prematurity/low birth weight. Two databases from previous case-control studies that investigated tha association between periodontal disease and prematurity/low birth weight were used, totaling 523 pregnant women. Their sociodemographic characteristics were evaluated using the chi-squared and Fischer exact tests. The clinical parameters adopted in these studies were based on complete periodontal clinical examination and werw obtained by a single trained examiner in each of the studies. The participants werw classified as having periodontal disease firstly using an index proposed by WHO (periodontal attachment loss (PALL) index), in which clinical attachment loss in the parameter, and secondly on the basis of complete examination, in which clinical attachment loss and probing depth ara the clinical parameters. The prevalences of periodontal disease identified according to complete examination and PAL criteria werw calculated. Comparisons between PAL and the complete examination criteria (Taken to be the gold standard) werw made using sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values. The results showed that when the PAL classification was used, the frequency of periodontal disease ranged from 50.7 % to 52.64 %. On tha other hand, when the complete examination criteria were used, this occurrence measurement ranged from 26,76% to 37.08%. The PAL index showed sensivity and positive predictive value of 100% and the specificity and negative predictive value ranged from 67.3% and from 52.8% to 70.4%, respectively. The findings suggest that PAL may overestimate the frequency of periodontal disease in certain situations, thus disthort this occurrence measurement in relation to the complete examination