BACTEREMIA AS A TRIGGERING WAY FOR PREMATURE BIRTH IN PREGNANT WOMEN WITH PERIODONTAL DISEASE

Abstract

Premature birth (PP) is a change in a woman's gestational period due to multiple causes. As one of the possible etiological factors of this physiological impairment, periodontal disease (PD) appears in the literature, a chronic inflammatory condition sustained predominantly by anaerobic Gram-negative bacteria. It is suspected that, under favorable conditions, these microorganisms, their toxins and the inflammatory mediators resulting from the infection can enter the bloodstream and reach the protective tissues of the fetus, triggering a distant inflammatory process capable of generating PP or even spontaneous abortion. The objective of this work was to review the literature in an integrative manner, with exclusive interest in the mechanisms that enable bacteremia resulting from PD and its potential to induce PP. The PICO strategy guided the formulation of the study question and the PRISMA flowchart organized the search and selection of scientific articles, which was directed to the PubMed, SciELO and Google Scholar databases, targeting publications on the topic in the last sixteen years, span which covers important discoveries and discussions about the relationship between PD and pregnancy.