Correlation analysis of serum TFF3 and FKN levels with the degree of periodontal disease and clinical perio-dontal indicators in patients with chronic periodontitis
Objective:To investigate the correlation between the expression levels of trefoil factor 3(TFF3)and frac-talkine(FKN)in the serum of patients with chronic periodontitis(CP)and the degree of periodontal disease and clinical perio-dontal indicators.Methods:This study prospectively selected 120 CP patients who visited our dental department from January to June 2023 as the CP group,including 56 males and 64 females.They were grouped into mild group(35 cases),moderate group(48 cases),and severe group(37 cases)based on the degree of periodontal disease.Meantime,120 healthy individuals with periodontal tissue who visited the dental department of our hospital were randomly selected as the control group,inclu-ding 67 males and 53 females.Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA)was applied to detect the expression levels of TFF3 and FKN.Pearson correlation analysis method was applied to analyze the correlation between TFF3,FKN expression levels and periodontal clinical indicators.Multivariate Logistic regression was applied to analyze the influencing factors of se-vere CP occurrence,receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve was applied to evaluate the diagnostic value of TFF3 and FKN for CP severity.Results:The expression levels of TFF3 and FKN in the serum of CP patients were obviously higher than those in the control group(P<0.05),and their expression levels gradually increased with the severity of the disease(P<0.05).The expression levels of TFF3 and FKN in the serum of CP patients were positively correlated with periodontal clini-cal indicators such as probing depth(PD),attachment loss(AL),plaque index(PLI),and bleeding index(BI)(P<0.05).The area under the curve(AUC)for the diagnosis of moderate CP by TFF3 and FKN was 0.807(95%CI 0.715~0.900)and 0.824(95%CI 0.737~0.911),respectively,the AUC for the combined diagnosis of the two was 0.913(95%CI 0.852~0.973),and the combined diagnosis of the two was better than that of serum TFF3 and FKN alone(P=0.009,P=0.017).The diagnosis of severe CP with TFF3 and FKN was 0.798(95%CI 0.702~0.893)and 0.793(95%CI 0.691~0.895),and the combined diagnosis of the two had an AUC of 0.900(95%CI 0.826~0.975),the combined diagnosis of severe CP was superior to the individual diagnosis of serum TFF3 and FKN(P=0.006,P=0.009).Conclusion:As the severity of CP pa-tients increases,the expression levels of TFF3 and FKN in serum gradually increase,and are positively correlated with perio-dontal clinical indicators.The combination of TFF3 and FKN has high value in diagnosing the severity of CP patients and can be used as early diagnostic indicators.