Last month, we honored 40 years since UCSF health care providers began treating patients with diseases that would later be linked to AIDS. For UCSF Dentistry, identifying AIDS and later HIV, would quickly lead to finding a connection between oral health and overall health.
Many do not know that the earliest signs of AIDS happened in the mouth. Even before the disease was identified, clinicians in our Oral Medicine clinic, including Deborah Greenspan, DSc, BDS, noticed an unusually high number of young male patients presenting with oral candidiasis, a condition commonly associated with a compromised immune system. Greenspan and her husband, John Greenspan, BDS, PhD, would later become the first to describe hairy leukoplakia, an oral lesion, as a precursor of AIDS. Other UCSF Dentistry researchers, including Sol Silverman, Jr., DDS, Vibeke Petersen and Yvonne de Souza studied the oral manifestations of HIV and AIDS extensively. The Greenspans also introduced safe infection control protocols in the School of Dentistry, pushing UCSF to the forefront in the fight against AIDS. Their work led to the Oral AIDS Center at UCSF, which was instrumental in teaching physicians, nurse practitioners and other clinicians how to identify oral lesions associated with HIV infection.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, UCSF Dentistry once again partnered across disciplines and units to help with testing, contact-tracing and the administration of vaccines. Our UCSF Dentistry researchers have teamed up within the UC system and beyond to understand and curb COVID-19.
Today, we recognize the significant contributions of Drs. Greenspan and other colleagues at UCSF Dentistry in understanding HIV/AIDS, one of the world’s largest public health crises. The safety measures developed in the beginning of the AIDS crisis to protect patients and health care personnel helped lay the groundwork in establishing infection control measures for COVID-19. And the recognition of oral lesions as an early sign of AIDS further contributed to the realization that oral health can be a precursor for other diseases in the body.
The human mouth is like a canary in the coalmine, alerting us to diseases and illnesses in other parts of the body, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer; it often is a harbinger of both the development and severity of these conditions. There is a synergistic relationship between oral health and overall wellness, as our HIV/AIDS researchers discovered in their work.
That is why partnering UCSF Dentistry and UCSF Health clinical services will be so essential in improving quality of care and patient outcomes. Leaders in both organizations currently are developing a plan for our partnership. Working together more closely will encourage an environment of collaboration and innovation among our clinical, teaching and research programs. Establishing a seamless collaboration between UCSF Dentistry and UCSF Health will better prepare us to fight the next unknown disease or virus in our world.
I am proud to be a part of UCSF, an anchor organization that continues making monumental discoveries and advancements in oral health and health care to protect our society against worldwide pandemics. I encourage you to learn more about the role UCSF has played the past 40 years in the battle against HIV/AIDS. Included in the coverage is a perspective written by Drs. Greenspan.
— Michael Reddy, Dean, UCSF School of Dentistry, Associate Vice Chancellor, Oral Health Affairs
>> Read UCSF's Coverage: 40 Years of AIDS
