Dental hygiene and COPD exacerbations = Dental hygiene and COPD exacerbations

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Background: The aim of this study was to examine the relationship of dental brushing and COPD acute exacerbation in patients with mild to moderate COPD. Methods: This was a retrospective observational study. Data were obtained from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) (2007 ~ 2012) database. Mild to moderate COPD patients were defined as 50 % ≤ FEV1 <80%. Acute exacerbation of COPD was defined as emergency room visit or hospital admission with prescription of antibiotics and/or systemic corticosteroid within 3 days. We defined the exacerbators as the patients with history of exacerbations during 6 years, and the non-exacerbators as the patients without history of exacerbations during 6 years. We examined the tooth brushing before sleeping, whether tooth brushing or not per a day, the use of tooth floss, the use of interdental tooth brush. We survey whether tooth brushing pattern affect the exacerbation. Results: A total of 241 patients (10.1%) had experienced exacerbations among 2363 mild to moderate COPD patients. Exacerbators showed older ages compared to non-exacerbators (68 yrs vs. 62 yrs, p<0.001). Exacerbators showed lower frequency of tooth brushing before sleeping compared to non-exacerbators (16.2% vs. 24%, p=0.008). Exacerbators showed lower frequency of tooth brushing before survey day (93.4% vs. 97.8%, p=0.021). Exacerbators used tooth floss less compared to non-exacerbators (4.3%, vs. 13.7%, p<0.001). Odds ratio is 0.30 (95% CI 0.15-0.62, p=0.001) of dental floss users for COPD exacerbations compared to non-users. Conclusions: Dental floss user experienced less exacerbations than non-users. Dental floss might decrease COPD exacerbations. Further studies will be needed.