Prevalence of Herpesvirus and Correlation with Clinical Parameters in Indian Subjects with Chronic Periodontitis

The identification of new uncultured species and viruses supports the possibility of combination of the herpes-virus-bacterial periodontal infection for periodontitis. The paucity of data and studies with larger sample size in Indian subjects provides an unclear picture of the presence of the herpesvirus in this population.

This was a cross-sectional study consisting of 100 each in the healthy group and chronic periodontitis (CP) group. The subgingival plaque was collected and polymerase chain reaction was performed post deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extraction by using specific primers for human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). The data were analyzed using Fisher's exact test, Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman's coefficient correlation.

Human cytomegalovirus and EBV viruses were significantly higher in the CP group as compare to the healthy group. A higher percentage of those with CMV positive had EBV also positive (28.3%) compared to only 9.1% of CMV negative being EBV positive in the CP group. When both the healthy and CP group in total was compared, there was a significant correlation with all clinical parameters.

Both the viruses dominated in disease as compared to health were similar to the earlier findings. The CP group had higher pocket depth and clinical attachment loss in the virus positive subjects. These findings could suggest that virus serves as a prelude to the disease and the combination of the two viruses could play a role in the pathogenesis.