Polymorphonuclear neutrophil chemiluminescence in periodontal disease

The oxidative metabolism of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) in rapidly progressive periodontitis (RPP, n = 19), localized juvenile periodontitis (LJP, n = 10), adults periodontitis (AP, n = 10) and healthy control subjects (HS, n = 39) was compared using the luminol chemiluminescence (CL) method. Possible influences of the isolation procedure on CL were circumvented by replacing starch with Haemaccell 35 as the sedimentation agent. In all groups, CL was significantly higher with autologous serum than with normal pooled serum (NPS) and there was a significant linear relationship between the two values. Comparisons of both pooled and autologous serum between patient groups and their matched controls were not statistically significant. There was a suggestion of serum-induced defects in 2 patients and 1 control. The range of individual values within each group was very heterogeneous, probably because of the many factors that are able to influence both the production of CL and the basal levels of CL observed.