Prevalence of target anaerobes associated with chronic periodontitis.

INTRODUCTION

Periodontal diseases are a group of chronic infections that destroy tissues surrounding and supporting the teeth. Data on the anaerobes associated with periodontal infections in Kuwait is lacking.

AIM

To investigate the target anaerobes associated with chronic periodontitis (CP) in patients admitted to Dental Clinics in Kuwait University Health Sciences Center, Kuwait.

METHODOLOGY

Patients with CP (severe and moderate) were recruited into this study during a period of 15 months. Samples were collected directly from inside the gingival pockets and subjected to semi-quantitative PCR assays.

RESULTS

A total of 30 patients, stratified into moderate and severe CP and 31 healthy individuals, used as controls, were studied. Nine (30 %) of the 30 patients were in the 50-59-year age group. The detection rate of between the patients (9 : 30 %) versus the controls (5 : 16.1 %) was non-significant (0.05). spp., were detected in all patients versus 29 (93.1 %) controls, (0.05). However, four target anaerobes were significantly associated with CP patients; was detected in ten (33.3 %) patients versus two (6.4 %) controls ( <0.0001); 25 (83.3 %) versus 16 (51.6 %) controls ( <0.0001); 27 (90 %) versus 16 (51.6 %) controls ( <0.0001) and 18 (60 %) versus nine (29 %) controls ( <0.0001), respectively. spp. were detected in 27 (90 %) patients and 30 (96.7 %) controls (>0.5). There was no significant difference in the burden of spp. between patients and controls determined by semi-quantitative PCR assays.

CONCLUSION

Some (4/7) of the target anaerobes were significantly associated with CP in our study. was the most strongly associated anaerobe with CP, although not the keystone bacteria, while spp. was similar to the healthy controls.