Periodontitis, female fertility and conception (Review)

Periodontal disease (PD) has been shown to increase the risk of preterm birth, preeclampsia and low birth weight. These observations have suggested that PD may also affect the early phase of pregnancy, including conception. The present study aimed to evaluate whether an association exists between oral health status and the chance of clinical pregnancy, according to the currently published literature, by performing a systematic review. The PubMed and EMBASE databases were searched from their start dates to October 2021 using the following keywords: ‘Infertility’ OR ‘conception’ OR ‘pre-pregnancy’ OR ‘time-to-pregnancy’ AND ‘periodontitis’ OR ‘periodontal disease’ OR ‘dental infection’ OR ‘gingivitis’ OR ‘odontogenic infection’ (limits: Full article, English, Human). A total of 6 papers reporting observational information on PD and spontaneous (4 studies) or medically induced conception (2 studies) were retrieved. As such, there were limited studies with different designs (randomized controlled trials and observational studies) and different settings. Moreover, in the selected studies, the ethnicity of the women was heterogeneous. According to the limited published literature, oral health might affect fertility in women. However, only results from prospective randomized trials, comparing PD treatment vs. no treatment in women seeking pregnancy, may clarify the real effectiveness of treatment in improving the conception rate.