Marginal Periodontitis and Immune System

I. Analysis of Peripheral Lymphocytes of Periodontitis Patients and Normal Subjects

Abstract

Subsets of T-cell and B-cell from peripheral blood of normal individuals and patients with adult chronic marginal periodontitis were analyzed by means of flow cytometry system. The proportions of OKT-3, OKT-4, OKT-8, Leu-12 positlive cells and OKT-4/ OKT-8 ratio of patients were 61.25±11.40%, 40.83±7.22%, 21.73±5.70%, 8.25±3.12% and 2.01±0.71, respectively, while those of normal individuals were 64.40±8.69%, 36.39±4.47%, 27.30±4.56%, 10.19±2.73% and 1.29±0.22. Distribution of OKT-8 positive cells and OKT-4/OKT-8 ratio had significant differences between normal individuals and patients. Increase of B-cell was recognized as corresponding to the increase of OKT-4/OKT-8 ratio in patient's peripheral blood. High proportion of B-cell is predicted to bring about the destruction of T-T or T-B interaction by a decrease of OKT-8 positive cells. And the conversion of a stable T-cell lesion to a progressive B-cell lesion may be caused by alteration of regulation of the immune response.