Immunohistochemical Study of the Influence of Cigarette Smoking on Periodontal Tissue in Severe Periodontal Patients

In this study, we investigated the influence of cigarette smoking on periodontal tissue in patients with severe periodontitis. A gingival biopsy was taken at the time of peri-odontal surgery of 22 smokers with severe peri-odontitis (male, mean age: 50.8±8.6, S-Patients) and 11 non-smokers with severe periodontitis (male, mean age: 52.6±11.9, NS-Patients). Fro-zen and paraffin-embedded sections were processed for both histopathological and immunohisto-chemical examinations. An indirect avidin biotin immunoperoxidase technique was used to stain the specimens for the expression of adhesion molecules and Fcε receptor. In gingival connective tissues, the expression of adhesion molecules such as ICAM-1, CD 62 e, and CD 62 p were not different between the two groups, but there was stronger expression of CD 62 p than ICAM-1 and CD 62 e. The strong expression of CD 62 p in gingival connective tissue seemed to be the result of active inflammation in periodontal tissue. In S-Patients, there was a larger number of infil-trate cells in gingival epithelium compared with NS-patients. Moreover there was a larger number of FCE receptor positive tissue mast cells in the gin-gival epithelium and connective tissue than in the tissue of NS-patients. These results suggest that inflammation of periodontal tissues could be modified by cigarette smoking in S-Patients.