Dentists can play key role with meth users

Mar 8, 2010

Dentists can play a crucial role in the early detection of methamphetamine use and participate in the collaborative care of users, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Dental Association (March 2010, Vol. 141:3, pp. 307-318).

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles wanted to determine the relative prevalence of dental comorbidities in methamphetamine users and verify whether these drug users have more quantifiable dental disease.

They provided comprehensive medical and oral assessments to 301 adults dependent on methamphetamine. Trained interviewers collected patients' self-reports regarding oral health and substance use behaviors. The authors used propensity score matching to create a matched comparison group of nonusers from participants in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III).

Among their findings:

Dental or oral disease was one of the most prevalent medical comorbidities in methamphetamine users who otherwise were generally healthy.
On average, methamphetamine users had significantly more missing teeth than did matched NHANES III control participants.
Significant subsets of methamphetamine users expressed concerns with their dental appearance (28.6%), problems with broken or loose teeth (23.3%), and tooth grinding (bruxism) or erosion (22.3%).
The intravenous use of the drug was significantly more likely to be associated with missing teeth than was smoking the drug.

"Overt dental disease is one of the key distinguishing comorbidities in methamphetamine users," the authors concluded. "Methamphetamine users have demonstrably higher rates of dental disease and report long-term unmet oral health needs."