# Evaluation of Oral Health and Dental Treatment Outcomes of Sjogren's Syndrome Patients

> **NIH NIH R56** · INDIANA UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS · 2020 · $549,902

## Abstract

Project Summary
Dental caries and tooth loss are the two major dental problems in Sjögren's syndrome patients (SSP) that lead
to high restorative treatments resulting in increased dental disease burden among these patients. Although
caries is very common and largely attributed to xerostomia in these patients, existing studies have not
evaluated the characteristics of caries (surface involvement and pattern of caries) and the influence of
comorbidities and medications on caries. The Sjögren's Syndrome Foundation (SSF) and the American Dental
Association recently developed clinical practice guidelines for the prevention of caries in SSP. However, this
guideline is based on expert opinion and lacks clinical validation. Moreover, effectiveness of dental restorations
(amalgam and composites) are unknown and no study has evaluated the longevity of direct restorative
materials in SSP.
In this project, we will validate the study cohort of Sjögren's syndrome (SS) diagnosis, and oral hard tissue
findings, characterize dental caries outcomes and assess the longevity of dental restorations using linked
dental and medical electronic health record (EHR) of patients with confirmed SS from the Indiana University
School of Dentistry (IUSD) and Indiana Network for Patients Care (INPC) respectively. We will generate a
dataset that include information such as patients' medical history, medications, and lab reports from electronic
medical records at INPC and dental history, dental treatment history, and tooth-surfaces level data from
electronic dental records at IUSD. This dataset will be utilized to: (1) generate a validated dataset of patients
with confirmed SS diagnosis; 2) assess the role of co-morbidities, and medications on caries outcomes among
SSP; 3) determine the longevity of restorations placed in SSP compared to those placed in non-SSP; and 4)
assess differences in dental treatments and caries outcomes based on dental provider's awareness of their
patient's SS diagnosis.
Our project is innovative because it will use linked dental and medical EHR data to identify SSP and generate
a large sample size of SSP. This project will address research questions important to patients, dentists and the
research community on dental caries and suitable restorations for SSP; produce a generalizable method for
linking dental and medical EHR data and extracting various clinical data for research purposes; and create
future opportunities to investigate the oral health of patients with rare diseases.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10241705
- **Project number:** 1R56DE029195-01
- **Recipient organization:** INDIANA UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS
- **Principal Investigator:** Thankam P Thyvalikakath
- **Activity code:** R56 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $549,902
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-04 → 2023-09-03

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10241705

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10241705, Evaluation of Oral Health and Dental Treatment Outcomes of Sjogren's Syndrome Patients (1R56DE029195-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10241705. Licensed CC0.

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