Association between Periodontitis and Interleukin-8 in Saliva

Abstract

Objective: Periodontitis has been known as chronic inflammatory disease initiated by an unbalance between pathologic oral microbiota and the host defense. Several studies suggested that interleukin-8 (IL-8) is associated with periodontitis in gingival crevicular fluids (GCF) and serum, but the relationship between IL-8 and periodontitis in whole saliva has not been widely reported. This study aims to evaluate the association between periodontal severity and the whole salivary IL-8 level.

Methods: Participants were recruited from the Yangpyeong health cohort study from 2010 to 2014 as the baseline for dental cohort. The final 623 participants were selected for the analysis. Periodontitis was assessed by a dentist using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/American Academy of Periodontology (CDC/AAP) criteria through panoramic radiographs. IL-8 was assayed using multiplexed bead immunoassay (Luminex). Information about age, sex, smoking, drinking, and education were obtained by interview. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis was applied to assess crude association between salivary IL-8 and periodontitis, and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) controlled for various confounders.

Results: Mean salivary level of IL-8 was not discriminated between periodontitis severity groups (ANOVA, p-value=0.235). After controlling for confounders, statistical difference of salivary IL-8 was not observed between groups (ANCOVA, p-value=0.375). Neither age nor sex stratified analyses showed significant difference.

Conclusion: There was no statistically significant difference of salivary IL-8 between periodontitis groups. Further study is indicated to confirm the result.