Impaired neutrophil chemotaxis in patients with juvenile and rapidly progessing periodontitis

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Polymorphonuclear leukocyte chemotactic studies were performed in young patients with juvenile periodontitis/periodontosis and adult patients with aggressive periodontitis. In the juvenile periodontitis/periodontosis group, 86% showed modest leukotactic defects, the majority of which were due to intrinsic abnormality of cells. In the older patients with rapidly progressing periodontitis 48% had detectable leukotactic defects; the majority of which were serum associated. The results indicate that some forms of periodontitis are associated with impaired polymorphonuclear leukocyte chemotaxis and suggest that a failure of a major host protective mechanism to dental plaque may increase susceptibility to periodontal disease.