Crevicular fluid prostaglandin E levels as a measure of the periodontal disease status of adult and juvenile periodontitis patients

Abstract

The measurement of crevicular fluid PGE (CF‐PGE) as an indicator of periodontal disease status was investigated. The association between CF‐PGE levels and the PGE content of the adjacent periodontal tissues was found to be highly significant (P=5.3 × 10 −6 ). The high correlation (r=0.925) between the log CF‐PGE level and the tissue PGE concentration indicates that CF levels can be used to reliably predict tissue levels. The CF‐PGE measurements at each periodontal site were found to be highly reproducible. Samples from adult and juvenile periodontitis patients demonstrated that the mean CF‐PGE levels were correlated with disease severity, as determined by mean attachment loss. The mean CF‐PGE level in juvenile periodontitis patients was almost three‐fold higher than that present in adult periodontitis (144.0 ± 28.0 ng/ml vs 57.5 ± 8.7 ng/ml, mean ± S.E., significant at P = 0.002). The use of CF‐PGE concentrations as an indicator of disease activity (i.e. longitudinal attachment loss) cannot be demonstrated by this cross‐sectional study. However, the CF‐PGE measurement has been demonstrated to be a non‐invasive, sensitive, reproducible, and reliable reflection of tissue levels of PGE 2 . The association of increasing levels of CF‐PGE with increased severity and aggressiveness of disease is consistent with PGE as an inflammatory mediator of tissue destruction.