comparison of salivary beta-defensin-1 levels in patients with periodontitis before and after phase i periodontal therapy

Background. this study compared human β-defensin 1 (hbd-1) salivary levels in patients with periodontitis before and after phase i periodontal therapy. methods. this controlled before-and-after study included 16 patients in the intervention group and 28 participants in the control group. patients in the intervention group had stage 3 grade b periodontitis with no systemic diseases and had not taken any medications in the last six months. the control group included participants with healthy periodontium. before and after phase i periodontal therapy, salivary samples were collected from the intervention group. elisa was used to measure hbd-1 levels. results. salivary levels of hbd-1 decreased after phase i periodontal treatment in periodontitis patients, approaching those in healthy individuals. however, this reduction was not statistically significant (p=0.389). in patients with a probing depth (pd) of at least 3 mm, salivary levels of hbd-1 decreased significantly (p=0.019) following the intervention. there was no significant correlation between changes in hbd-1 levels and clinical indices, such as clinical attachment loss (cal), probing depth, or bleeding index (bi) (p˃0.05). conclusion. the current study demonstrated promising results concerning a probable link between hbd-1 and periodontitis. however, more research with sufficiently large sample sizes and more robust study designs is necessary.