She explores the spectrum of oral disorders in autoimmune diseases, especially in Sjögren’s syndrome and Lupus Erythematosus, and she has shown great progress in her work. In June, Ágnes Heizer was named Ph.D. student of the month (Year 1) at the Centre for Translational Medicine.
Dr. Heizer is a resident at the Department of Preclinical Dentistry, and her research is related to the dental aspects of autoimmune diseases. She learned about CTM ‘s Ph.D. training from one of her colleagues who had previously been involved in this program. “I particularly liked this training because I knew that we would get a lot of support for our research, and we would be supported in our progress by statisticians and scientific methodology experts.” Dr. Heizer has always been interested in research, and she was involved in academic work as a dental student. She was mainly focused on oral dryness, which is a serious problem, and increases the risk of many dental problems. This condition is mainly found in people suffering from Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease.
In her first project, Dr. Heizer investigates the prevalence of oral disorders in Sjögren’s syndrome. The systematic review and meta-analysis on this will be completed soon. “Our results have clearly shown that patients with Sjögren’s syndrome have more oral disorders than those who are not affected. Our research also showed that people with this disease tend to have poor oral hygiene, and they lose teeth more often than others. They also have a higher risk of dental caries. For this reason, patients’ oral hygiene should be monitored more closely than others, and they should have much closer dental check-ups than at present. This should always be brought to the attention of patients by immunologists.”
Dr. Heizer is about to start her second project, in which she will research the prevalence of oral disorders in systemic Lupus Erythematosus. This disease is also an autoimmune disorder often associated with oral disorders. She wants to find out which oral problems are more likely to occur in this disease and what their exact prevalence is. Exploring this topic will help patients with lupus to be more aware of their oral hygiene.
(Szabó Emese)