Background: Increased interleukin-17 (IL-17) leads to the production of proinflammatory mediators and increases local inflammation. Interleukin-17 may also promote receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa-B ligand (RANKL) expression on gingival fibroblasts, T cells, and B cells, resulting in alveolar bone resorption. Interleukin-17A and IL-17F levels in saliva and gingival crevicular fluid (GCF), were found to be elevated in periodontitis patients. Thus, IL-17A and IL-17F polymorphisms were hypothesized to be associated with a risk of periodontitis. Methods: The present study was conducted on 60 subjects, including 20 stage II grade B periodontitis patients, 20 stage III grade C periodontitis patients, and 20 healthy controls. Blood samples were drawn from the subjects and analyzed for IL-17A G-197A and IL-17F 7488T/C genetic polymorphisms using the TaqMan assay. Results: There was a significant statistical difference between the distribution of the different genotypes and the different alleles in the three groups for IL-17A G-197A with the A allele presence indicating a risk of periodontitis. Conclusions: Interleukin-17A G-197A polymorphism is significantly associated with different clinical forms of periodontitis in the Egyptian population. The A allele could be considered a risk factor for periodontal diseases.

The present study was designed to compare the prevalence of Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in saliva of oral lichen planus (OLP) patients with its serum levels, in order to verify the effectiveness of salivary VEGF in monitoring OLP lesions. Thirty eight individuals were included and subdivided into 4 groups, 8 patients suffering from papular OLP, 11 patients with atrophic OLP, 11 patients with erosive OLP and 8 individuals having age and gender matched with previous groups acting as a control group. Serum and whole unstimulated saliva samples were collected from all the included individuals to determine VEGF level in both saliva and serum utilizing the ELISA technique. The results showed that the control group had the lowest level of VEGF in both saliva and serum and the papular group had slightly higher values than that of the control. As for the erosive group, it showed the highest levels of VEGF in saliva as well as in serum followed by the atrophic group. Thus, it could be concluded that both serum and salivary VEGF levels correlate perfectly with the clinical severity of different OLP lesions and that VEGF seems to play an important role in pathogenesis, activity, and severity of OLP lesions also that the analysis of salivary VEGF level is a non-invasive reliable way for the diagnosis and the monitoring of disease activity and a measure of the effectiveness of new therapeutic modalities. Aim: The current study compared the VEGF expression in both serum and saliva between various forms of OLP patients and control subjects in order to determine the effectiveness of salivary VEGF to reflect the disease activity.