Methods: Ninety-sex subjects were enrolled, mean age (SD) 36.5 (15.42), age range 22 to 82, percent males 52%, percent Caucasians 57%, percent cigarette smokers 33%. Periodontal evaluations including plaque index (PI), gingival index (GI), probing depth measurements (PD) and attachment levels (AL) were performed on 6 sites per tooth. Subjects were divided into 3 groups: periodontally healthy (no loss of attachment and no gingival bleeding, 17 subjects), gingivitis (no loss of attachment and presence of gingival bleeding, 54 subjects) and periodontitis (loss of attachment > 5 mm in 5 or more teeth, 25 subjects). A single chromogenic strip was used to collect a whole saliva sample from the mouth. Color reaction was scored based on a color chart. The scoring examiner was blinded to clinical status.
Results: Good to moderate correlations were found between SS scores and PI (r=0.47, p=0.0001), GI (r=0.45, p=0.0001), PD (r=0.42, p=0.0001), and AL (r=0.30, p=0.002). Analysis of variance showed significant differences in SS scores among the three study groups (p = 0.0001); post-hoc analysis showed difference between non-periodontitis and periodontitis subjects (p = 0.01). Nominal logistic regression adjusting for smoking showed the odds ratio of periodontitis increase by a factor of 12.76 for each increase of one unit of measure of SS.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that assessing whole saliva sulfur levels has potential as a screening test for periodontal diseases.
Sponsored in part by ALT Bioscience (Lexington, KY)