Research Article Comparison of Salivary TIMP-1 Levels in Periodontally Involved and Healthy Controls and the Response to Nonsurgical Periodontal Therapy

Copyright © 2014 Angel Fenol et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Periodontal disease is a chronic inflammatory condition affecting the supporting structures of the dentition. Periodontal destruction is an outcome of the imbalance between matrix metalloproteinases and tissue inhibitors of matrix metalloproteinases (TIMPs). We wanted to prove the hypothesis that salivary TIPM-1 level will vary in different people. A decrease in TIMP-1 level could make them more susceptible to periodontitis whereas a normal level could prevent increased tissue destruction thereby inhibiting the progression from gingivitis to periodontitis. This could probably pave the way for TIPM-1 to be a specific salivary biomarker and serve as a useful diagnostic and therapeutic tool in periodontitis. Methods. Whole unstimulated saliva of 2mL was collected from twenty-five periodontally healthy and twenty-seven systemically healthy subjects with periodontitis. Clinical parameters recorded at baseline and reevaluated after fourweeks in subjects with periodontitis following nonsurgical periodontal therapywere gingival index (GI), oral hygiene index-simplified (OHI-S), probing pocket depth, and clinical attachment level (CAL). Salivary TIMP-1 levels in both were analyzed using a commercially available ELISA kit. 1