Relationship between bleeding on probing and periodontal disease progression in community-dwelling older adults

Objective: The main objective of this study was to determine the relationship between bleeding on probing (BOP) and periodontal disease progression in community-dwelling older adults. Methods: A 3-year longitudinal study was carried out in 229 non-smoking healthy older adults aged 70 years. Using pressure-controlled periodontal probes, BOP, pocket depth and attachment level at 13,289 sites were measured annually. Periodontal disease progression was defined as an increase in attachment loss of ≥ 3 mm from the baseline to the final examination. The backward stepwise logistic regression analysis was performed to assess the relationship between the total number of sites with BOP in the four examinations and periodontal progression. Results: Logistic regression analysis showed that the odds ratios of BOP frequency for periodontal disease progression ranged from 1.4 to 6.2 after controlling for pocket depth ≥ 4 mm at baseline, number of missing teeth, jaw type and tooth site. Conclusion: Increasing frequencies of bleeding might increase the probability of periodontal disease progression in community-dwelling older adults.