A comparative biochemical study of salivary malondialdehyde levels in healthy individuals and patients with chronic periodontitis

Aim: Periodontitis is an acute or chronic inflammatory process, initiated by the plaque biofilm, that causes loss of periodontal adherence to the root surface and adjacent alveolar bone and which ultimately results in tooth loss. Our objective was to evaluate malondialdehyde levels in healthy individuals and patients with chronic periodontitis. Materials and Methods: 50 subjects aged between 17-50 years attending the Out Patient Department of Periodontics in the A.B Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences were divided into 2 groups. 25 patients served as the control group and the rest 25 patients served as the test group 3 ml of unstimulated whole saliva was collected from subjects using disposable spittoons and were centrifuged and frozen at –20°C until analysis. Lipid peroxidation products malondialdehyde were analyzed by Thiobarbituric acid (TBA) reaction. Results: The results obtained were subjected to statistical analysis (Test for Normality and Mann Whitney U Test). Conclusion: Our study reveals that malondialdehyde levels, a lipid peroxidation product in increased in Chronic Periodontitis cases compared to Control cases with a median of 2.98 and the control has a median of 0.94 which is statistically significant with a p value of <0.001.