We investigated the effect of comprehensive periodontal therapy on the levels of systemic inflammatory markers associated with coronary heart disease, to determine whether the periodontal treatment could influence the serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and othr markers in a Korean aggressive periodontitis patients.
Method:
Twenty patients with aggressive periodontitis in systemically healthy condition received comprehensive periodontal therapy within a 10 week period. Fasting blood samples were obtained at: 1-week pre-therapy (T1) as baseline, and 2M after treatment completion(T2). We assessed the WBC and differential blood cell count, high-sensitivity CRP (hs-CRP) and blood cholesterol levels, and the difference in the values between T1 and T2 was tested by using pairwise t-test at p<0.05.
Result:
Periodontal status demonstrated a significant improvement in all patients following treatment. At T2, platelet count and hs-CRP level was significantly reduced compared to T1. However the proportion of blood lymphocyte and HDL cholestrol was increased significantly at T2 compared T1. Fibrinogen level was decreased at T2, but not significantly, in correlation with the level of CRP ( R2=0.163, p=0.03). Responses were highly variable: analyses of summary inflammatory score slopes between baseline and T2 showed that approximately 1/2 and 1/4 of the patients experienced a marked reduction and a increase in systemic inflammation, respectively.
Conclusion:
Periodontal therapy resulted in an overall reduction of systemic inflammation, but the responses were variable across subjects.