THE EFFECT OF SMOKING ON INDIVIDUALS WITH MINIMAL PERIODONTAL DESTRUCTION

RECENT STUDIES HAVE DEMONSTRATED that smoking is associated with perio dontal destruction. The majority of these studies have focused on peri odontal disease groups with moderate or severe periodontal destruction . Additionally, there have been few reports investigating the relation ship between smoking and gingival recession. The goal of this report w as to investigate the effect of smoking on periodontal destruction and recession in subjects with minimal or no interproximal attachment los s. This is a cross-sectional study of 142 non-smoking subjects and 51 smoking subjects. Subjects could have no more than one tooth with a si te of interproximal attachment loss greater than or equal to 2 mm. Sub jects could, however, have attachment loss associated with recession. For three different methods of summarizing attachment loss measurement s at a subject level, including average attachment loss, percentage of teeth with one site of 2 mm of attachment loss, and the percentage of teeth with one site of 5 mm of attachment loss, smoking subjects had approximately twice as much attachment loss than their non-smoking cou nterparts. Smoking subjects also had significantly greater recession ( P < 0.05) (0.056 +/- 0.017 mm) than non-smoking subjects (0.025 +/- 0. 005 mm). Recession sites occurred primarily on the facial surface of m axillary molars and bicuspids and mandibular central incisors and bicu spids. The results suggest a strong association between smoking and bo th attachment loss and recession in subjects who have minimal or no pe riodontal disease.