Fast Facts: Perio Edition – Statins: An Adjunct to SRP

Fast Facts: Perio Edition Episode 80
 
[Andrew Johnston, RDH]
Welcome back everyone! You are listening to another episode of Fast Facts- Perio Edition brought to you by A Tale of Two Hygienists in partnership with DentistRX. And now, please welcome your host, Katrina Sanders.

[Katrina Sanders, RDH]
Hello, and welcome to Fast Facts Perio Edition. This week, I am going to unpack for you a weird fact, a fun fact that some of you might know, but I found just kind of weird. We are now starting to see some incredible data coming down indicating that in other countries, they are utilizing statins as an adjunct to scaling and root planing. Get this, they have actually found that the local delivery of statins so this is going to be localized, delivering simvastatin, atorvastatin, rosuvastatin. The localized delivery of these statins into the subgingival space has actually shown a promising adjunct to SRP. In fact, what we found is that randomized trials demonstrate pocket depth reduction and clinical attachment gain not only in our healthy patients, but also in patients who are tobacco users and in diabetics. Now, these statins or these drugs, my friend Tom Viola will tell you, are very specific drugs that are targeted to lower the LDLs in the body. So as you’ve got these low density lipoproteins circulating through the body, these COA reductase inhibitors or statins, lower those LDLs or the bad cholesterol in the body. And it’s incredibly critical for us as we now begin to look at how these statins are impacting our oral health.
 
You see, in these randomized trials, they found that not only healthy people, tobacco users and diabetics, but individuals who are taking high dose statins, so these are going to be your patients, think about your medical history who are taking these statins specifically to lower LDLs, that these individuals also experience significantly lower levels of inflammation and bone loss when compared with those who are not taking statins.
 
So this specific data says that an individual who takes what they call a high dose statin that’s going to be 80 milligrams or higher, versus a low dose statin that would be 10 milligrams, demonstrated a significant lower level of this inflammatory and bone loss process.
 
So my challenge to you this week, if you have a patient who is on a statin, learn a little bit more about the dosage or the milligrams that this patient is currently taking, as this could influence the success of your nonsurgical periodontal therapy.
 
This has been another episode of Fast Facts – Perio Edition with Katrina Sanders, RDH. Please feel free to reach me on Instagram @thedentalwinegenist or on my website www.KatrinaSanders.com Cheers.
 
[Andrew Johnston, RDH]
Thank you for listening to another episode of Fast Facts – Perio Edition, brought to you in part by DentistRX makers of the InteliSonic line of power brushes. Find out more by visiting their website at www.dentistrx.com. We’ll see you next week for another Fast Fact!

Resource: ​​
Ambrosio, LMB. Rovai ES,.et al.Does the adjunctive use of statins provide additional benefits tononsurgical periodontal treatment? A systematic review and meta-analysis.The Journal of PeriodontalResearch53,12-21 (2018).