A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Intervention with β-Glucan in the Treatment of Localized Aggressive Periodontitis

Research Abstract

Objective: To investigate the feasibility of β-glucan as an adjunct to non-surgical therapy in patients with localized aggressive periodontitis (LAP). Materials and methods: Thirty patients were randomly and equally distributed to un- dergo scaling and root planing together with either placebo pills (Group I) or β-glucan (100 mg/once a day; Group II) for 40 days. Pocket depth (PD), clinical attachment level (CAL), and gingival index (GI) were monitored on days 0 and 91. Histological and im- munohistochemical examination were performed using anti-matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 antibodies for gingival samples at the same time points. Results: A signifi cant clinical improvement was noticed at the end of the study for both treatments (p < 0.05). Group II showed a signifi cantly greater reduction in PD (1.57 ± 0.62, p = 0.005), an increase in CAL (1.56 ± 0.35, p = 0.0001), and a decrease in GI (1.39 ± 0.08, p = 0.0001) compared to Group I (0.85 ± 0.66, 0.65 ± 0.25 and 0.82 ± 0.10, respectively). Group II also showed a signifi cantly lower level of MMP-9 expression (p = 0.0001), compared to the control treatment. Conclusions: The results of the non-surgical therapy on patients with LAP were remark- ably improved clinically by β-glucan administration, accompanied by a trend for modu- lation of the MMP-9 profi le in gingival tissue samples.

Research Keywords

β-glucan, host modulation therapy, matrix metalloproteinases, randomized double-blind clinical trials