da Costa Filho Luiz Cesar, da Costa Carolina Covolo, Sória Marina Lara, Taga Rumio
Professor of Periodontology, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Brazil.
J Oral Pathol Med. 2002 Sep;31(8):473-80. doi: 10.1034/j.1600-0714.2002.00110.x.
Animal studies have suggested that home bleaching agents can cause morphological alterations and changes in the proliferative rate of oral epithelium.
A bleaching agent containing 10% carbamide peroxide with carbopol was used in 11 women (five smokers and six non-smokers) during a 5-week period. Two biopsies were performed, one of them 15 days before the beginning of the home bleaching treatment and the other immediately after the 5-week bleaching treatment. Two analyses were performed in the histological sections obtained from the biopsies: epithelium morphometry and assessment of the epithelium's proliferative activity by proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) immunohistochemistry.
The home bleaching agent increases epithelium thickness and the PCNA index in both smoker and non-smoker patients.
Carbamide peroxide (10%) caused an augmentation in the proliferative activity within the basal and parabasal layers of the gingival epithelium, resulting in a change in this tissue's morphometry.
