Association of Herpes Viruses with Mild, Moderate and Severe Chronic Periodontitis

Periodontal disease is an inflammatory condition of the supporting tissues of the teeth. It is a multi-factorial and multi-etiological infectious disease process. Recent evidences shows that human herpes viruses could be putative pathogens. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the association of Herpes viruses especially Herpes simplex viruses (HSV-1 and 2), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) in patients with chronic periodontitis.

A total of 75 patients with periodontitis were included in the study (25 each with mild, moderate and severe periodontitis) with ethical approval and informed consent. Sub gingival plaque sample was collected and subjected to extraction of DNA and further analysis with multiplex Polymerase chain reaction for the presence of herpes viral DNA. The collected data was entered in the excel sheet format. It was subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS software. The Chi-Square statistical tests was applied and p-value<0.05 was taken as significant.

The overall association of HSV-1, HSV-2, EBV and CMV was 28%, 32%, 30.66% and 37.33% respectively in the present study from the cases of chronic periodontitis.

Epstein Barr viruses were detected from all types of cases of chronic periodontitis in the present study. Though, EBV was not significantly associated with periodontitis; they were significantly increased in severe periodontitis. Herpes viruses were significantly associated with periodontal disease, more so with severe periodontal disease. They could thus be playing a role in increasing the severity of the disease. Therapeutic and prophylactic intervention planned against these viruses could decrease the tooth loss associated with this disease.