A RADIOGRAPHIC SURVEY OF PERIODONTAL CONDITIONS IN GREECE

The present study used radiographic assessments to evaluate the patter n of destructive periodontal disease in a rural and an urban sample of 25-64 year old Greek adults. The rural sample (A) comprised 190 subje cts and the urban sample (B) 400 subjects. 13% of the subjects in samp le A and 8% in sample B were edentulous. Full-mouth intraoral radiogra phs were obtained from the 503 dentate subjects and were examined with respect to (i) number and type of teeth present, and (ii) alveolar bo ne level (ABL), i.e., the distance between the cementoenamel junction and the alveolar bone crest at the approximal tooth surfaces. The resu lts revealed that alveolar bone loss was ubiquitous in both samples. P ronounced bone loss, however, (i.e., a subject mean ABL of greater tha n or equal to 6 mm) affected 18% (sample A) and 8% (sample B) of the i ndividuals. Although an ABL of greater than or equal to 6 mm was score d at 7.2 sites/subject in sample A and at 4.5 sites/subject in sample B, more than 10 such sites were found in 23% (A) and 11% (B) of the ex amined subjects. 25% of the subjects in the rural sample (A) and 12% i n the urban sample (B) accounted for 75% of the total number of tooth sites with pronounced bone loss. Multiple regression revealed that age and number of remaining teeth were the parameters most strongly corre lated with the amount of bone loss on both the individual subject and the tooth site level. The present findings (i) demonstrated a high pre valence and severity of destructive periodontal disease in these 2 sam ples, and (ii) confirmed the skewed distribution of advanced disease i n the population.