Periodontitis is a chronic inflammation affecting the tooth-supporting periodontal tissues. It is diagnosed by measuring periodontal parameters. However, documenting this data takes effort and may not discover early periodontitis. Biomarkers may help diagnose and assess periodontitis. This study aimed to evaluate the potential diagnostic of the salivary tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and receptor-activator of nuclear factor ĸ-B-ligand (RANKL) in distinguishing between periodontitis and healthy periodontium.
The selected sample size consisted of 88 subjects; it was divided into two groups: 44 subjects in the periodontitis group and 44 subjects in the healthy group. Unstimulated salivary samples were collected from participants. Demographic data and clinical periodontal parameters were recorded. ELISA was used for the quantification of levels of TNF-α and RANKL.
Both TNF-α and RANKL concentrations showed statistically significant differences when comparing healthy to periodontitis (p < 0.01). The sensitivity of RANKL was found to be perfect (1.00), while its specificity was high (0.92) and the area under curve (AUC) was 0.985. On the other hand, TNF-α displayed high sensitivity (0.976) and good specificity (0.893), with an AUC of 0.973.
Salivary RANKL and TNF-α showed high diagnostic precision and hold potential as helpful instruments for the timely identification and distinction of periodontal diseases (PDs), presenting opportunities for enhanced management of PD and patient welfare.
