The need to accurately determine the prevalence of a disease is important especially in establishing treatment needs for particular population groups. Reported prevalences for juvenile periodontitis (JP) have varied from less than 0.1% to 17%. The use of overall prevalence values to determine treatment needs in populations which include various ethnic groups is not reliable since there is evidence that the prevalence in different groups is unequal. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and sex ratio of JP in a large group of military recruits and to compare these values between the different racial populations. Thirty-eight cases of JP were diagnosed from a group of 5,013 young male and female recruits of varying ethnic origin. The overall prevalence was 0.76% and the female:male ratio 1.1:1.0. These findings raise questions as to the continued quotation of a female:male ratio of 3:1, and provide additional evidence for an overall ratio closer to 1:1. In addition, prevalences of JP varied considerably between racial groups. Blacks had a much higher JP prevalence (2.1%) than caucasians (0.09%). Black males had a higher prevalence (3.81%) than black females (1.99%). For black recruits the F:M ratio was 0.52:1. For caucasian recruits the F:M trend is opposite (4.3:1), although the number of cases diagnosed in the caucasian group was too low to compute a true ratio. The data support studies which show that in the blacks, the disease is less prevalent in females than in males. Caution must be exercised in interpreting results in any study in which the sample population is not categorized.
The purposes of this study were two‐fold: to compare the DNA probe and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) microbial identification tests and correlate the levels of microorganisms with adult periodontitis. A single plaque sample was taken from each of 2 sites in 52 patients. Twelve of these patients were also sampled during and after treatment. The experimental site had clinical indicators of disease (bleeding on probing, probing and attachment loss of ≥ 6 mm) and the contralateral site (control) was clinically healthy. A total of 176 plaque samples were collected, divided, processed, and sent for both types of quantitative microbial analyses. All of these samples were used to compare the DNA probe and ELISA methods while only the initial 104 pretreatment sites were used to correlate microorganisms/method with clinical indicators of adult periodontitis. DNA probes were used to assay for A. actinomycetemcomitans, P. gingivalis, P. intermedia, E. corrodens, F. nucleatum, T. denticola, and C. rectus. An ELISA utilizing monoclonal antibodies was used to assay for P. gingivalis, E. corrodens, T. denticola, and C. rectus. Comparison of the two methods revealed that the ELISA test identified P. gingivalis and C. rectus significantly more often than the DNA probe method and that T. denticola was detected more frequently with the DNA probe. The sensitivities and specificities varied widely among organisms and by test. P. gingivalis, as identified by ELISA, had the highest degree of sensitivity and specificity (0.90 and 0.82 respectively) to clinical indicators of adult periodontitis. J Periodontol 1994;65:576–582.
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