PERIODONTAL MICROBIOTA OF MOBILE AND NON-MOBILE TEETH

THE MECHANISM OF ACCELERATED PERIODONTAL destruction around teeth with occlusal trauma and increased mobility remains unclear. One possibili ty is that tooth mobility creates a subgingival environment conducive to overgrowth by periodontal pathogens. This study compared the subgin gival microflora in mobile and non-mobile teeth of 35 adults on suppor tive maintenance therapy and 15 with untreated adult periodontitis. In each subject, subgingival paper-point samples were obtained from a mo bile tooth with a probing depth of 4 mm or greater and from a non-mobi le tooth with similar probing depth and gingival index. Samples were t ransported in VMGA III medium. Pockets around mobile teeth harbored si gnificantly higher proportions of Campylobacter rectus (P = 0.001) and Peptostreptococcus micros (P = 0.05) than pockets with non-mobile tee th. Mobile teeth also tended to show elevated levels of Porphyromonas gingivalis, but this did not reach statistical significance. This stud y suggests that tooth mobility may constitute a risk for periodontal b reakdown due to an increased subgingival occurrence of specific period ontopathogens. This hypothesis needs to be verified in longitudinal cl inical and microbiological studies.