Salivary chromogranin A levels in patients with temporomandibular joint disorders during psychological stress loading

Abstract

Stress is a major factor that contributes to temporomandibular joint disorders (TMD), but its evaluation is not reliable. Among salivary stress hormones, chromogranin A (CgA) is considered to be a novel stress marker as an objective evaluation. A control group consisting of 19 healthy adult volunteers without TMD was divided into two types of stress (cross-over method), psychological and physical stresses, and changes in the salivary CgA levels were investigated to establish an objective method of evaluating the influences of stresses for patients with TMD. In addition, psychological stress induced changes in the salivary CgA levels were investigated in the control group and the TMD patient group consisting of 53 patients with TMD diagnosed by MRI. Mixed saliva was collected every 5 minutes before, during, and after the stress loading using cotton for saliva sampling, Salivette (Sarstedt Co., Germany).
Salivary CgA was measured by ELISA. The measured values were log-transformed. In statistical analysis, repeated measures two-way layout analysis of variance and multiple comparison analysis were performed.
No significant differences were noted in the salivary CgA levels at any time point between the two types of stress loaded. On comparison of the control and the TMD groups, the CgA values were significantly different among the time points, but no significant difference was noted between the two groups. In multiple comparison between the baseline CgA value and the CgA value at each time point, the value immediately before stress loading and the value at 5 minutes of stress loading were significantly higher than the baseline value in the TMD group.
It is suggested that measurement of salivary CgA may be useful for objective evaluation of the stress condition of patients with TMD.