Periodontal Treatment Effects on Endothelial Function and Cardiovascular Disease Biomarkers in Subjects with Chronic Periodontitis: Protocol for a Randomized Clinical Trial

Methods

This randomized, single-blind clinical trial will be performed at two health centers and will include two periodontal treatment strategies. After medical/periodontal screening, a baseline endothelium-dependent brachial artery flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) and other systemic surrogate markers will be obtained from all recruited subjects. Patients then will be randomized to receive either supragingival/subgingival plaque cleaning and calculus removal plus chlorhexidine (treatment group) or supragingival plaque removal only (control group). A second and third FMD will be obtained after 24 hours and 12 weeks of periodontal treatments, respectively. Each group will consist of 49 patients (n=98) and all patients will be followed-up for secondary outcomes and will be monitored through a coordinating center. The primary outcomes are FMD differences baseline, 24 hours and 3 months after randomization. The secondary outcomes are differences in C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), glucose serum levels, blood lipid profile, and HOMA index.

Discussion

This RCT is expected to provide more evidence on the effects of different periodontal treatment modalities on FMD values, as well as to correlate such findings with different surrogate markers of systemic inflammation with cardiovascular effects.ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00681564.

The article is published online within the journal, Trials and is free to access.