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.