Introduction and objective: Dental caries is an inflammatory disease with multifactorial etiology. The presented study was conducted to test the hypothesis that the elevation of salivary cytokines - interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-8 (IL-8) and tumour necrosis factor (TNF-a) is changed in dental caries patients. IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-a are particularly relevant to inflammation, one of the very first responses of the host to a pathological insult.
Materials and methods: Whole saliva from 26 patients with dental caries, as well as 10 healthy persons, was investigated for the presence of IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-a by enzyme immunoassay - ELISA.
Results: The results showed that an elevation of IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-a in unstimulated whole saliva in subjects with dental caries, compared with controls, increased and was statistically significant in all cases (p <0.05). The study also show a positive correlation between TNF-a and IL-8.
Conclusions: These data suggest links between the production of tumour necrosis factor (TNF-a), interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-8 (IL-8) in saliva and dental caries disease.