Association between health risk factors and apical periodontitis in fitted endodontically and non-endodontically treated teeth

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of health risk factors on apical periodontitis in fitted endodontically and non-endodontically treated teeth in army soldiers (environmental risk factor) and diabetic patients (biomedical risk factor). This cross-sectional study included patients aged 25–40 years. After participants were filtered based on exclusion criteria and questionnaire (DASS-21) responses, 108 males were chosen and divided into three groups of 36 participants each (G1: soldiers, G2: diabetic, G3: healthy). The periapical status of the participants’ teeth according to OPG X-ray outcomes was independently evaluated using a periapical index. The healthy group showed a higher ratio of fitted teeth to both non-endodontically and endodontically treated teeth (98.8%, 70%) than diabetic patients (98.6%, 52.1%) and soldiers (95.6%, 35.3%). Meanwhile, soldiers showed higher apical defects of both non-endodontically and endodontically treated teeth (7.8%, 33.3%) than diabetic patients (6.4%, 12%) and healthy individuals (5.7%, 7.1%). A statistically non-significant relationship existed between being healthy and experiencing apical defects for all fitted non-endodontically and endodontically treated teeth among all groups. The higher prevalence of apical periodontitis in soldiers and diabetic patients suggests a positive relationship between worsened apical areas of teeth and health risk factors, such as diabetes mellitus disease and environmental stress.