Association of nine pathobionts with periodontitis in four South American and European countries.

AIM

Our aim was to compare the prevalence and load of nine pathobionts in subgingival samples of healthy individuals and periodontitis patients from four different countries.

METHODS

Five hundred and seven subgingival biofilm samples were collected from healthy subjects and periodontitis patients in Belgium, Chile, Peru and Spain. The prevalence and load of and were measured by quantitative PCR.

RESULTS

The association with periodontitis of all species, except for , was confirmed in all countries but Peru, where only and were found to be significantly associated. Moreover, most species showed higher loads at greater CAL and PPD, but not where there was BOP. Through Principal Component Analysis, samples showed clearly different distributions by diagnosis, despite observing a smaller separation in Peruvian samples.

CONCLUSIONS

Unlike prevalence, relative load was found to be a reliable variable to discriminate the association of the species with periodontitis. Based on this, and may be biomarkers of disease in Belgium, Chile and Spain, due to their significantly higher abundance in periodontitis patients.