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Granulocyte elastase in gingival crevicular fluid: improved monitoring of the site-specific response to treatment in patients with destructive periodontitis.

In 13 patients with severe destructive periodontitis, the response to periodontal therapy was estimated by granulocyte elastase level in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF). 62 sites were classified according to changes of probing depths (PD) and quantitative bone height (BH%) before and after 5-year regular maintenance treatment: (i) 17 consistently healthy sites with no changes of PD and BH%; (ii) 6 initially healthy sites with deterioration in PD and BH%; (iii) 14 diseased sites with improvement in PD and BH%; (iv) 25 diseased sites with no improvement in PD and BH%. GCF was collected by an intracrevicular washing system. The released elastase in the supernatants (EA-S) and the cell-bound elastase in the pellets (EA-P) were determined with a low molecular weight substrate specific for granulocyte elastase. The ratio of EA-S and EA-P (S/P-ratio) was used as a relative measure of elastase released by the granulocytes present. The sites classified as diseased with no improvement or initially healthy but deteriorating, had significantly higher EA-S, EA-P and S/P-ratios than the consistently healthy sites or diseased but improving sites (p < 0.01). Both EA-S and S/P-ratio showed strongly positive correlations with the current levels of gingival inflammation and periodontal destruction (p < 0.001). The present study suggests that increased elastase level is associated with disease progression, and may be used to monitor the response to longitudinal maintenance therapy.