Impact of Photodynamic Therapy as an Adjunct to Non-surgical Periodontal Treatment on Clinical and Biochemical Parameters Among Patients Having Mild Rheumatoid Arthritis With Periodontitis

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of photodynamic therapy (PDT) as an adjunct to non-surgical periodontal therapy on the clinical periodontal and biochemical parameters among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) having periodontitis. Methods: A total of 50 RA patients with periodontitis were included. The subjects were equally divided into two groups: Group A - scaling and root planning (SRP) + PDT; Group B - SRP only, respectively. Plaque score (PS), bleeding on probing (BOP), pocket depth (PD) and clinical attachment level (CAL) were estimated. The biochemical parameters included the assessment of interleukin 6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and rheumatoid factors (RFs). Multiple comparisons were established by employing the Bonferroni's post-hoc test for both clinical and laboratory biomarker data. The Mann-Whitney test was used to compute the p-value for intergroup comparisons. For intra-group comparisons, the p-value was computed with the help of Wilcoxon signed ranks test.