Bone Biomarkers in Periodontal Disease - an update

A goal of periodontal diagnostic procedures is to provide useful information to the clinician regarding the existing periodontal disease type, location, and severity.Advances in oral and periodontal disease diagnostic research are moving toward methods whereby periodontal risk can be identified and quantified by objective measures such as biomarkers.Biomarkers of disease in succession play an important role in life sciences and have begun to assume a greater role in diagnosis, monitoring of therapy outcomes, and drug discovery. The challenge for biomarkers is to allow earlier detection of disease evolution and more vigorous therapy efficacy measurements. Biochemical markers of bone turnover and resorption have proved to be a useful, non-invasive and relatively inexpensive tool for studying bone metabolism in population studies and are gradually becoming established in clinical practice. Their main use, however, is in monitoring response to treatment. The continued development of new markers of bone turnover will increase the knowledge of the pathophysiology of periodontitis.