Smokers have greater risk for developing periodontal disease and smoking is highly correlated with greater marginal bone loss. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) play a major role in periodontal tissue destruction. MMP-2 and MMP-9, called gelatinases, are one of the major MMPs that plays important roles in periodontitis. To date, several studies showed the increased levels of gelatinases in periodontal disease and only a limited number of study investigated the effect of smoking on gelatinases. However, no previous study has directly investigated the possible relationship between smoking and gingival tissue gelatinases expressions (MMP-2 and MMP-9) in chronic periodontitis (CP) patients relative to periodontally healthy subjects.~Therefore this study is conducted to comparatively evaluate the expressions of MMP-2 and MMP-9 in smoker vs non-smoker chronic periodontitis patients as well as periodontally healthy subjects. the of this study hypothesis was that smoking may interfere with periodontal disease by effecting MMP-2 and MMP-9 expressions.
This study comparatively evaluate the expressions of MMP-2 and MMP-9 in smoker vs non-smoker chronic periodontitis patients as well as periodontally healthy subjects. the hypothesis of this study was that smoking may interfere with periodontal disease by effecting MMP-2 and MMP-9 expressions.