Abstract
AIM: Diabetes mellitus is undiagnosed in approximately half of the patients actually suffering from the disease. The prevalence of diabetes mellitus is nearly twice in patients with periodontitis as compared to periodontally healthy subjects.In addition, the prevalence of Diabetes mellitus is more than twice as high as in patients with periodontitis when compared to periodontally healthy subjects. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether blood oozing from gingival crevice during routine periodontal examination can be used for determining glucose levels. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In the present study 50 patients(25 diabetic and 25 non-diabetic) with chronic periodontitis were selected and were divided into two groups i.e. Group I and Group II, respectively. Blood glucose measurements were made using gingival crevicular blood, finger stick blood using glucose self-monitoring device (Finetest(TM); Infopia Co.Ltd;Korea) and at the same time intra venous blood was collected for measurement in a laboratory glucose analyzer. Each laboratory measurement was corrected from a serum glucose value to a whole blood glucose value by a function of the patient's haematocrit. RESULTS: The patient's blood glucose values ranged from 83.6 to 483mg/dl in diabetic patients(Group I) and 70-218 mg/dl in non-diabetic individuals (Group II) to 83.6 to 483mg/dl. The comparison between gingival crevicular blood, finger-prick blood and corrected intra venous blood showed a very strong correlation with an r value of 0.99(P level< 0.001) CONCLUSION: The data from this study has shown that gingival crevicular blood collected during diagnostic periodontal examination can be an excellent source of blood for glucometric analysis.