Presence of Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans and Porphyromonas gingivalis in Children with Clinical Signs of Periodontitis, Living in the Västerbotten County, Sweden

• Main Authors: Azizi, Asal, Hasan, Zainab
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Umeå universitet, Institutionen för odontologi 2016
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-131215

This study has examined the presence of A. actinomycetemcomitans and Porphyromonas gingivalis, in 10 children and adolescents in Västerbotten County, who had been referred to the Department of Pediatric Dentistry due to suspected periodontal disease. Based on previous studies we hypothesized that the majority of the enrolled subjects would be hosts for A. actinomycetemcomitans. A second hypothesis was that a relationship between periodontal disease and heredity would be found.   The aim was to study to which extent the enrolled patients were infected with A. actinomycetemcomitans and to enhance the general knowledge of the bacterial composition in children/adolescents with clinical signs of periodontal disease. Another aim was to examine the nature of the disease in relation to heredity, oral habits and ethnicity. A third aim was to compare PCR and cultivations for detection of pathogens.     Sampling was made from pathological periodontal pockets by a dentist or a dental hygienist. Samples were sent to a laboratory for analysis by two different methods: cultivation and PCR. Our results showed that the majority of the participants had non-European ethnicity, were positive for A. actinomycetemcomitans and 3 of 7 A. actinomycetemcomitans-positive subjects exhibited high leukotoxicity. No subject harbored the JP2 leukotoxin promoter genotype. Serotypes a-d and f, but not e, were detected. We concluded that the majority of the patients were infected with A. actinomycetemcomitans, some of them had high leukotoxicity but none of them had the JP2-genotype. The culture based analysis was similar in terms of detecting A. actinomycetemcomitans compared to the PCR method.