[Morphogenesis of early stages of periodontal inflammations]

Morphological signs of dissemination of active inflammatory process beyond the gingiva into the depth of the alveolar process bone tissue, paralleled by numerous destructive changes (bone resorption and lysis of collagen fibers of the periodontal ligament, plunged into the bone) in the periodontium are observed during clinically manifest chronic gingivitis. Hence, in contrast to the concept universally acknowledged in periodontology, despite the seeming clinical "heterogeneity" of gingivitis and periodontitis, these conditions should be regarded as a periodontal inflammation, because, judging by the detected morphological picture, each of the nosological entities acknowledged today (chronic gingivitis, periodontitis) represents just a successive stage of the same chronic inflammatory process differing only quantitatively but not qualitatively.