A comparative evaluation of the DNA damage in the serum of chronic periodontitis patients with and without diabetes mellitus type II.

Context: Periodontal disease is an immunoinflammatory disease that is initiated by the interaction between microbial plaque and the periodontal tissues. There is very limited data available on the assessment of DNA damage with relation to periodontal diseases. Therefore, a need for a study in this area was felt. Aims: To evaluate the DNA damage in the serum of chronic periodontitis patients and chronic periodontitis with diabetes mellitus (DM) type II patients and to compare it with healthy controls, to assess whether periodontitis can have systemic effects beyond the periodontium. Settings and Design/Subjects and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted involving 150 subjects in the age group of 30-60 years, from October 2010 to May 2015. A blood sample of 5 ml of venous blood was collected from each of the study subjects, from the antecubital vein. Fresh blood was used to assess the DNA damage. The DNA damage was estimated using the alkaline single-cell gel (comet) assay. Results: The DNA damage to the cells was calculated by assessing the percentage of "DNA in tail." The results showed that the values were higher in the periodontitis with diabetes group, as compared to the periodontitis and control group. When the Olive moment was calculated, the values were higher in the periodontitis with diabetes group as compared with the other two groups. Although the values were seen to be higher, it was not statistically significant. Conclusions: The results obtained from this study although statistically insignificant suggest that the DNA damage was higher in chronic periodontitis as compared with healthy control. There was a potentiated difference of the values in patients with DM type II when compared to chronic periodontitis alone.