Effect of initial treatment of chronic inflammatory periodontal disease in adults on spontaneous peripheral blood lymphocyte proliferation

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The spontaneous proliferative response (SPR) of peripheral blood lymphocytes, as a measure of the autologous mixed lymphocyte reaction (AMLR), has been found to be depressed in adults with chronic inflammatory periodontal disease (CIPD). The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that initial treatment of CIPD in adults restores the SPR to normal levels. 10 periodontal disease subjects (mean probing attachment loss of 4.2 mm and a mean bleeding index of 0.65) and 10 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects were studied. The SPR for each patient was evaluated on days 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 in culture, before and after initial treatment for CIPD. The peak SPR, which occurred at day 5, was depressed in the untreated periodontal disease subjects compared to the healthy control subjects (p<0.01). In addition, the kinetics of the SPR were found to be significantly different in 4 of the 10 parameters compared with the untreated periodontal disease patients and the healthy control subjects. After treatment, there was a significant reduction in probing attachment loss and bleeding indexes (p<0.001). In addition, the magnitude of the peak SPR was not significantly different from that of the healthy control subjects. Nevertheless, a difference in 1 of the 10 kinetic parameters persisted, which suggested that complete restoration of the SPR to normal had not occurred so soon after treatment. Although individual variations occurred, no significant differences in magnitude or kinetics of the SPR were found when the 2 healthy samples were compared, whereas the treated periodontal disease samples were significantly different from the untreated periodontal disease samples in both kinetics and magnitude at day 5 (p < 0.001) and day 7 (p < 0.05). These results support previous findings that SPR is depressed in patients with untreated CIPD and that it returns to normal following initial treatment and reduction in antigenic load.