Two major topics of JOURNAL OF ORAL MICROBIOLOGY are oral infections and systemic diseases. This thematic cluster of articles is devoted entirely to these topics and their interplay. The reason for this is that a relationship between oral infections and systemic diseases has increasingly been recognized over the past two decades. Systemic diseases involved include cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, low birth-weight pre-term babies, respiratory disease, and several other conditions such as osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis. The oral diseases include, in particular, periodontal diseases.
The present cluster deals with various aspects of the oral infection–systemic disease relationship. Professor Gregory J. Seymour, Dean, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, has been invited to act as Guest Editor for this special issue since he is very familiar with the oral infection–systemic disease relationship and has reported on it on several occasions. He and his co-workers are greatly acknowledged for their efforts to produce this collection of highly interesting articles.
Ingar Olsen
Editor-in-Chief