Introduction:

Periodontal disease affects the supporting tissues of the tooth generating a chronic inflammatory manifestation triggered mainly by bacteria included in an oral biofilm, which can migrate to other tissues of the body, the airways being a susceptible target.

Objective:

To determine if there is a cause-effect relationship between periodontal disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as reported in the literature in the last 20 years.

Materials and methods:

A systematic search of the literature was performed in Medline (through the PubMed search engine) using the guidelines of the PRISMA declaration with the help of the referred keywords.

Results:

49 publications were reviewed between 1998 and 2018. The largest number corresponded to the year 2013. The most frequent type of publication was descriptive studies (41%), followed by cases and controls (29%), reviews of the literature (18%), retrospective cohort studies (10%) and meta-analysis (2%). Of the total number of publications, 94% report that there is a relationship between periodontal disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, while 6% deny such association.

Conclusion:

There is an association between the two diseases, although the evidence is insufficient to establish a cause-effect relationship, it can be suggested that periodontal disease is a risk indicator for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and vice versa, since a two-way relationship is suggested.

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