Role of salivary biomarkers in periodontal diseases

Periodontitis is an inflammatory condition of the supporting tissues of the teeth. Intracellular enzymes are increasingly released from the damaged cells of periodontal tissues into the gingival crevicular fluid and saliva. It has been a great challenge to determine biomarkers for screening and predicting the early onset of disease (prognostic tests) or evaluating the disease activity and the efficacy of therapy.Various enzymes evaluated for the early diagnosis of periodontal disease are aspartate and alanine aminotransferases ( AST, ALT ), lactate dehydrogenase ( LDH ), creatine kinase ( CK ), alkaline and acid phosphatase ( ALP , ACP ) and gamma glutamiltransferase ( GGT ), myeloperoxidase ( MPO ). The activities of CK, LDH, AST, ALT, GGT, ALP, ACP, MPO, enzymes are found to be increased in periodontal diseases. Thus, an attempt has been made to review the diagnostic value of salivary enzymes in the diagnosis and progression of periodontal disease.