Chronic periodontitis and the subsequent risk of trigeminal neuralgia: a 5‐year follow‐up study

Aim This study set out to explore the possibility that chronic periodontitis ( CP ) may also be a condition that could potentially result in secondary or symptomatic trigeminal neuralgia ( TN ) by utilizing a population‐based dataset and cohort study design in Taiwan. Materials and Methods We included 110,104 subjects with CP in our study cohort, and randomly selected 110,104 subjects without a history of CP as a comparison cohort. We individually tracked each patient in this study for a 5‐year period to identify those who received a subsequent diagnosis of TN . Results The incidence rate of TN during the 5‐year follow‐up period was 4.40 (95% CI  = 3.87–4.98) per 10,000 person‐years for subjects with CP , and 2.60 (95% CI  = 2.20‐3.05) per 10,000 person‐years in comparison subjects. Cox proportional analysis revealed that the adjusted hazard ratio ( HR ) of TN during the 5‐year follow‐up period for subjects with CP was 1.65 (95% CI  = 1.34–2.03) times higher than that of comparison subjects. However, the study subjects who had undergone a gingivectomy or periodontal flap operation did not have a higher adjusted risk of TN than comparison subjects ( HR  = 0.93, 95% CI  = 0.54–1.61). Conclusion Our study detected a greater risk for TN among patients with CP than matched comparison subjects .