Genetics and Periodontium

Periodontitis is a multifactorial disease for which several risk and susceptibility factors are proposed in the natural history of periodontitis. A risk factor for periodontitis is a factor (environmental, behavioral or biologic) confirmed by temporal sequence usually in longitudinal studies. Presence of it directly increases the probability of disease occurring and the absence of a risk factor reduces this possibility. In a classical longitudinal study of natural history of periodontitis, Loe et al found that among individuals with poor oral hygiene and no access to dental care, some develop disease at rapid rate whereas others experienced little or no disease. This variation was attributable to either unrecognized components of the environment or differences among individuals in their susceptibility to disease. Because host susceptibility may be described in terms of genetic variation, a relatively recent focus in periodontology has been to quantify the genetic risk and identify specific gene variants that determine disease susceptibility.