Subginvival Temperature in Health and Disease—A Comparative Study

Aim: Of all the signs of inflammation rise of temperature is the most objective and reproducible. But this sign is rarely used due to nonavailability of an instrument which is easily available and also accurate. In this present study an attempt was made to devise such an instrument. So in this present study an indigenously prepared thermocouple was used to determine the subgingival temperature in healthy and diseased periodontal sites and to compare the same within various sites and regions among and within healthy and diseased periodontal sites and show that rise in subgingival temperature is an indicator of periodontal disease. Materials and Methods: 60 male subjects were selected within the age group of 19-54yrs. They were classified into STUDY GROUP which included subjects with periodontal sites having probing depth of 5mm or more with bleeding on probing and CONTROL GROUP included subjects with periodontal sites less than or equal to 4mm and which did not bleed upon probing. Only the central incisors, canine and first molars of any one quadrant of the maxillary and mandibular arch were considered. A copper-constantan thermocouple glued to a plastic probe was used to determine the potential difference between the thermocouple in periodontal site and ice. The potential difference is directly proportional to temperature and thus the temperature was determined by using a reference temperature chart or an equation.The statistical package SPSS PC+ version 4.0 was used for statistical analysis. Mean and standard deviation were estimated from the sample for each group. The mean values were compared by student’s independent t-test/ student’s paired t-test appropriately. In the present study, p <0.05 was considered as the level of significance. Results: Subgingival temperature in CONTROL group shows higher temperature difference from the sublingual temperature indicating cooler sites than STUDY group which showed smaller temperature