Medical conditions and medication use in a U.S. dental school clinic population.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to characterize coexisting medical conditions and medication use in patients treated at a US dental school in 2010 and to assess their implications on providing dental care.

Study Design: Data on the types and prevalence of self-reported medical conditions and the use of medications were extracted from the electronic health records of 1797 adult patients and compared against their socioeconomic status (SES).

Results: Within this sample, 8.7% were classified as American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status (PS) 1. The remainder were designated PS 2 to PS 4 for smoking, having one or more medical conditions that ranged from myasthenia gravis (<1%) to hypertension (24%), or both. Medications for hypertension were the most frequently reported (23%), followed by more than 40 other classes of drugs.

Conclusions: Dental practitioners must be prepared to treat larger numbers of older patients, whose life expectancies continue to increase as advances in pharmacotherapeutics and biomedical technologies improve the control of their chronic medical conditions.