Objective: (1) To investigate the general characteristics and the prevalence of systemic comorbidities in patients with periodontitis; (2) To evaluate the association between systemic health status and periodontal treatment needs.
Subject and method: A retrospective study of 168 medical records of patients with periodontitis, archived from January 2024 to May 2026 at the Department of Periodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, was conducted. The study comprised a cross-sectional component describing systemic comorbidities (Objective 1) and a retrospective longitudinal cohort component evaluating changes in periodontal surgical treatment needs across two post-treatment re-evaluations (Objective 2). Consecutive total sampling of all eligible records within the study period was used to extract data on demographics, systemic comorbidities, and the number of teeth requiring scaling and root planing and periodontal surgery.
Results: At least one systemic comorbidity was present in 64.3% of the patients, with hypertension (43/168; 25.6%) and diabetes mellitus (33/168; 19.6%) being the most prevalent (corresponding to 39.8% and 30.6% within the comorbidity subgroup, n = 108). The number of teeth requiring surgery decreased significantly from the first to the second re-evaluation in both groups (p < 0.05); given the uncontrolled retrospective design, this reflects an observed reduction over time rather than a proven treatment effect.
Conclusion: Patients with specialized periodontitis requiring intensive management exhibit a high disease burden. Although initial treatment needs differed between groups, no evidence of a between-group difference in the complexity of subsequent treatment stages was observed in this sample. The observed reduction over time in the number of teeth indicated for surgery is consistent with a beneficial role of non-surgical periodontal therapy, although causal inference is limited by the study design.