According to recent WHO statistics, more than 45% (3.5 billion) of the worldwide population suffers from dental problems, and 1 billion are impacted by periodontal disease.
Scientists are constantly researching the nature of the condition and its biomarkers, which can help reveal new treatment approaches. Recently, Penn Dental Medicine published one more breakthrough: they found a group of proteins in human organisms that are strongly associated with periodontal disease.
What did scientists research?
302 individuals with periodontitis and 113 healthy patients participated in the study. Researchers obtained their saliva and blood samples, which were tested for 10 and 5 inflammation-linked proteins, respectively.
As it turned out, people with severe forms of periodontitis had notably higher levels of several signaling proteins called IL-6, VEGF, IL-1β, MMP-8, and interferon-gamma. In blood, in turn, the severity of the disease did not significantly affect the inflammation protein level. However, amounts of the MMP-8, MMP-9, and C-reactive proteins significantly fell after treatment.
Why is it important?
Received data about disease biomarkers will help in saliva test kit development that may be used as preventative measures, allowing the detection of the earliest signs of gum disease. Theoretically, such a kit will save a bunch of hours and hundreds of dollars that we usually spend on treating more severe forms of periodontal disease.
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