Hypertension News:

Study: Dentists Should Measure Patients' Blood Pressure

Future trips to the dentist may not only help keep your teeth in good condition, it may also keep you abreast of any blood pressure problems.

A study in the September 10 issue of the Journal of Dental Education suggests that dentists could save lives simply by taking a few minutes to measure the blood pressure of every patient.

Researcher Sara Kellogg, a University of Michigan (UM) dentistry student, reviewed the records of patients treated at the university’s dental clinics in 1999. About one third had high blood pressure and nearly half of those had never been diagnosed as hypertensive.

Kellogg noted that many people see their dentist more regularly than a physician and could get an early warning about high blood pressure when getting their teeth cleaned or having some other dental treatment done.

Kellogg said she would like to see every dentist take an initial blood pressure reading for every new patient, then record blood pressure with every follow-up visit.

Kellogg's faculty advisor, Jack Gobetti, a UM professor of dentistry predicted that blood pressure screening is going to be part of the modern dental office protocol. “It is a tremendous public service to do this as a public health screening,” he said.

The benefit is not only for the patient. Since anesthetic behaves differently in patients with high blood pressure and hypertensive patients typically bleed more during surgery, Gobetti said dentists should know patients' blood pressures before beginning treatment.

Some patients, Gobetti said, should be referred for medical evaluation before receiving dental treatment and should not be treated until their blood pressure is under control.

Gobetti said a typical patient's blood pressure might rise by 10 or 15 points because of nervousness just walking into a dentist's office. However if the dentist has a record of blood pressure readings for the last few years of office visits, the dentist can see if a reading is particularly high for that patient.

UM student dentists are already encouraged to measure patients' blood pressure before treatment.

Source: Medical Week staff, week of October 2, 2004