MARGINAL PERIODONTITIS AND CYTOKINES - A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

RECENT RESEARCH ON THE IMMUNOPATHOGENESIS Of marginal periodontitis ha s focused on cytokines, because these mediators govern biologicial act ivities in inflammatory tissue destruction. Several studies have been carried out to elucidate the involvement of cytokines in periodontitis , including cytokine measurements in samples from gingival tissue, gin gival crevicular fluid, and in supernatants of stimulated in vitro gro wn cells from gingival tissue and peripheral blood. The results, summa rized in this review, suggest that cytokines are involved in the progr ess of periodontitis. Furthermore, cytokines may be valuable as marker s of tissue breakdown. At the present stage, however, there are diffic ulties in detecting and quantifying cytokines by immunochemical method s and, in particular, by bioassays. Increased knowledge of the cytokin e network may open new pathways of periodontitis treatment by controll ing processes involved in tissue breakdown.