THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN DOWN’S SYNDROME AND PERIODONTITIS: A REVIEW OF CURRENT INSIGHTS

Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory disease which can affect all age groups depending on the etiology either local or systemic. Most of systemic conditions cause periodontitis and one of them is downs syndrome which is also called
trisomy 21. It was also observed that 90% of downs syndrome children have periodontal disease (PD) with majority in
the age group of 7-10 years. Due to anatomical abnormalities or impaired learning disabilities or intra oral tissue
abnormalities or neurological deficiencies, Down’s syndrome patients cannot maintain their oral hygiene properly
leading to progressive periodontitis. Other immunological abnormalities such as proteolytic enzyme deficiency,
inflammatory cytokine deficiencies can also aggravate tissue destruction and bone resorption.
Therapeutic treatment protocols such as scaling and root planing, use of mouth washes, electric tooth brushes, regular
dental checkups and non–invasive procedures such as photodynamic therapy, laser, probiotics etc. can help the patient’s periodontal tissues to stay healthy. An initial search of 437 articles from PUBMED, EMBASE, Cochrane library, web of science, and google scholar was done. 22 articles were excluded records excluded due to inappropriate title and abstract. 72 articles were excluded after abstract screening and 89 full text articles were assessed. 32 articles were excluded as outcome of interest was not reported and 21 due to incorrect study design. A final of 36 articles were studied to elaborate the review on Down’s syndrome and periodontitis.