Correlation of levels of interleukin-1ß in gingival crevicular fluid to the clinical parameters of chronic periodontitis.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: IL-1ß is a potent stimulator of bone resorption and has been implicated in the pathogenesis of periodontal destruction. Therefore, this study was designed to compare the levels of IL-1ß of chronic periodontitis patients with the healthy subjects. Another objective of this study was to correlate IL-1ß levels with the clinical parameters of the periodontal disease progression. METHODS: For this study, total 60 subjects were chosen (30- healthy and 30-chronic periodontitis). Simplified oral hygiene index (OHI-S), gingival index (GI), periodontal disease index (PDI), probing depth (PD), tooth mobility, bleeding on probing (BOP) were recorded for all the subject. Gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) was collected and subjected for ELISA for estimation of IL-1ß. RESULTS: At the periodontal diseased sites, the IL-1ß levels increased at least 2-fold as compared with healthy subjects. This increase was highly significant (p = 0.0000). Within the test group, IL-1ß levels correlated positively and significantly with PDI, PD, BOP and tooth mobility. The correlations of IL-1ß with PD (p = 0.000) and IL-1ß with BOP (p = 0.0004) were highly significant. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSION: These data suggest that amount of GCF IL-1ß is closely associated with periodontal status. This relationship may be valuable in monitoring periodontal disease activity. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: It could be stated from this study on IL- 1ß that there seem to be a strong correlation between periodontal tissue destruction and IL-1ß. Furthermore IL-1ß level could also differentiate between active and inactive periodontal lesions.